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187:
HISTORY
CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY,
NEW YORK,
FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT TIME;
WITH NUMEROUS
BIOGRAPHICAL AND FAMILY SKETCHES.
By ANDREW W. YOUNG,
ft
^rxHOR OF "SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT," "AMERICAN STATESMAN," "NATIONAL ECONOMY." ETC.
Embellished with ui'Wards of One Hundred Portraits of Citizens.
BUFFALO, N. Y.
PRINTING HOUSE OF MATTHEWS & WARREN. 1875-
\ Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, *T-- By Andrew W. Young,
In the offict ofjAS'Cbrarian 1
ess, at Washington.
9
^?^
PREFATORY NOTE.
After the lapse of a period much longer than was anticipated, the writer offers to the public the result of his protracted labors. Although he has no assurance that the work will fully meet the expectations of all for whom it has been written, he indulges the hope thi^t -it-will receive a good measure of the popular favor. But how much soever it may fall short of universal commendation, he has the satisfaction' tp believe, that its supposed defects will not be ascribed to any lack of effort, on his part, to fulfill the pledge of his "best endeavors to produce a history which should meet the expectations of the people, and reflect honor upon the county." This has certainly been his paramount object, irre- spective of the time deemed necessary for its accomplishment.
The author takes occasion here to suggest to the reader the advantage of a careful reading of the Introduction before proceeding to the perusal of the History. Portions of the work which might otherwise appear somewhat obscure, will be rendered quite intelligible by the previous reading of the explanations in the introductory pages.
V
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INTRODUCTION.
Apologetic and Explanatory.
Seldom has a publication made its advent so long after its inception as this history of Chautauqua county. Fifty years ago, a distinguished citizen of the county conceived the idea of such a history, and commenced the collec- tion of material. This labor was, for many years, unremittingly continued, so far as his professional and public duties permitted. His removal from the state and other causes conspired to hinder the progress of the work, until dis- ease and the infirmities of age forbade the accomplishment, by his own hands, of his favorite and long-cherished object; and the people of the county, who had long awaited its appearance, abandoned the hope of its publication.
At this juncture, the name of the author, then in a distant state, was com- municated, by a friend, to the projector of the work. A correspondence en- sued, which resulted in an engagement, on my part, to assume the entire re- sponsibility of its publication. It was a great, and, pecuniarily, a hazardous undertaking. To examine more than twenty large volumes of manuscript and printed scraps from county newspapers, and a large number of printed volumes, for such matter as could be made available in the compilation of the work ; and to collect, in person, an equal amount of additional matter from the twenty-six towns in the county, was a task which few who had a just con- ception of its magnitude would have readily assumed.
An important characteristic of a work is accuracy. Yet in publications of no other kind than this is it so difficult. Few of the earlier settlers remain ; and the recollections of these few are so diverse and conflicting as to render them unreliable, unless confirmed by the concurrent statements of others. The collections of matter for several Avorks containing historical sketches of this county, appear to have been too hastily and carelessly made. One of them, though a valuable work, abounds with errors. Several appear in the sketch of a single town, and more or less in the sketches of many other towns. Probably to save time and labor, most of these erroneous statements have been taken, on trust, from the first person applied to for information, and.
VI INTRODUCTION.
without further inquiry, inserted in the forthcoming publication ; and, through that and succeeding histories, they will be transmitted to future generations.
A large portion of this History is based on the collections of Judge Foote. These were commenced long before there were any old settlers in the county ; and they consist chiefly of the experience a.nd observation of the persons from whom they were obtained, and before their memories were impaired by time or age. A large portion of this matter has been examined by some of the early and well informed settlers still living, and has been found singularly free from inaccuracies. In the collection of new material, unusual pains have been taken to guard against errors. To ascertain the truth in the hundreds of disputed cases, has required an amount of labor of which few can form a just conception. And after the county had been several times travers&d, and the newly collected matter written out, I was unwilling to permit it to be print- ed until I had again visited every town, and submitted the manuscript to my informants and others for examination. Any person, therefore, who questions the truth of any statement, has reason to doubt the correctness of his own memory, or of the source from which his information was obtained. Yet it would be a marvel if no inaccuracies should be discovered. Persons, not a few, have erred in relating transactions which occurred under their own ob- servation, or in which they had themselves participated. If, with all the pains taken to insure a correct history, the object has not been attained, it may be confidently pronounced tinattainable. In family sketches, inaccuracies are most likely to appear. Persons intimately acquainted with families they have described, have not in all cases been quite correct 3 and some sketches received in manuscript have not been entirely legible. Sundry errors, discovered since the body of the book was printed, are corrected on pages immediately preceding the Index, at the end of the Avork.
Of the merits of the work, different opinions will be formed. Matter which some will appreciate, others may regard as unimportant. Some, perhaps, will read with little interest the adventures and experience of the early settlers, with which they are already familiar. Others will read this part of the work with greater interest than any other. A large portion of this History has been written, not so much for the present generation, as for the generations which are to follow. Many remember how earnestly they listened to the stories of pioneer life from the lips of their ancestors. Before the present generation shall have passed away, not an individual will remain to relate, from his own personal knowledge, the experiences of the first settlers which have so deeply interested us. This interest will not be abated by the lapse of time. The written narrative of incidents of " life in the woods," will be no less accepta- ble to those who come after us, than was the wtz/ relation to ourselves. Hence,
INTRODUCTION. vu
to commemorate the events and occurrences of the past — to transmit to our descendants a faithful history of our own time — is a duty. Many to whom such a history shall be transmitted, will estimate its value at many times its cost. Without it little will be known of early times, except what shall have come down to them by tradition, always imperfect and unreliable.
This History is written for a population of 60,000, differing greatly in their views and tastes, which the historian can not entirely disregard. Hence, in addition to pioneer history, which constitutes a considerable por- tion of the work, the reader will find a great variety of other matter, civil, ecclesiastical, educational, commercial, agricultural, statistical and biographi- cal, which will render it convenient and useful as a book of reference, now' and hereafter. It is believed that the exclusion of either of these subjects would have materially impaired its value.
There was early manifested a desire among settlers to see the names of themselves or their ancestors associated with the history of the county. This desire is a natural and a proper one. A large portion of the early set- tlers in every town have been mentioned, and many others will be disappointed at not finding their own names. The omission was unavoida- ble. A notice of one-half of the families of this l^ge county, would have infringed too much upon the sj^ace required for other topics. To visit every family was impossible : those only were called on who were most accessible and most likely to furnish the desired historical information. Hence the names of many of the more worthy and prominent citizens have necessarily been omitted.
Biographical and genealogical sketches form a prominent feature of this History. They will generally be found in the historical sketches of the towns in which their subjects respectively resided or now reside. Sketches of persons who have resided in several towns, are in some cases inserted in the histories of the towns in which they passed the earlier or more eventful period of their lives. Probably no part of the History will be more fre- quently referred to than this. Many of these sketches contain much interesting historical matter, and will amply compensate a perusal. Their number has been materially increased by the unusual and unexpected num- ber of portraits furnished by citizens, who, by their generous contribution to the embellishment of the work, deserved a full biographical and family sketch of the person represented by the portrait. One characteristic of these biographical notes can hardly escape the notice of the reader — the absence of eulogy, especially of the living. As persons widely differ in their estimate of the characters of their fellow-men, it was deemed prudent not to venture beyond a simple statement of the more noticeable incidents and events of the life of any living subject.
Vlll INTRODUCTION.
The attention of the reader is invited to the plan and arrangement of the work. Matter of general interest and application, and relating to the early history of the state and county, is first introduced, and is arranged under appropriate heads or titles. This greatly facilitates the finding of historical facts. The general history of the county is followed by a particular history of the several towns, in alphabetical order. The historical sketch of each town includes the names of early farmers, mechanics, business and profes- sional men, and notices of mills, manufactories, schools, churches, etc. This will aid in the search for matter relating to the towns. The Table of Con- tents at the beginning, and the Index at the end, of the volume, will gener- ally enable the reader to find what he seeks for. His searches, however, will be greatly facilitated by making himself familiar with the arrangement of the work. But the greatest advantage would be gained from at least one perusal, in course, of the entire History. Many interesting occurrences therein recorded, might, without such perusal, never come to the knowledge of the reader.
It soon became apparent that the work would far exceed its prescribed Hmits. To keep it within a proper and convenient size and weight, type one size smaller than was at first intended, was selected ; the printed page was greatly enlarged ; and the reading matter was increased twenty per cent, be- yond the quantity promised. And paper of less than the usual weight and thickness was taken to render the book more convenient in the using, and to insure its greater strength and durability.
Those who have read the foregoing pages will need no further apology for the unexpected delay in the issue of this work. No one regrets it more deeply than myself To my patrons this delay is a gain at my expense. A history of the county might have been written in half the time expended upon this ; but I would not offer to the public what was not satisfactory to myself. I presumed they would rather be served later with a good book than earlier with an indifferent one. In respect to its embellishment they will be more than satisfied. No definite number of portraits was promised. Instead of fifty, which, it was hoped, might be obtained, the public are presented with double that number, of which one-half are fine steel engravings, in which the subjects of the pictures will be readily recognized, except, per- haps, in a few cases of defective photographs, or of pictures taken twenty-five or thirty years ago. The aggregate cost of the portraits exceeds eight thousand dollars.
To the numerous friends who have given me assurances of their interest in this enterprise, I offer my grateful acknowledgments. All who have been applied to for information, have cheerfully rendered the desired service.
INTRODUCTION. ix
Next to Judge Foote, the projector of the History, who has devoted years of gratuitous labor to his favorite object, Hon. Obed Edson has the strong- est claim to the gratitude of the people of this county. The " prehistoric matter," (as it has been appropriately termed,) with which the work com- mences, and which has cost much time and elaborate research, has been gratuitously furnished ; and it will be regarded, by most appreciative minds, as an invaluable contribution to the work. The lectures of the late Hon. Samuel A. Brown, delivered in the Jamestown academy, in 1843, and Judge E. F. Warren's Historical Sketches of Chautauqua County, have furnished valuable matter. Some has also been obtained from the sketches of early settlers in Stockton and Ellery, by J. L. Bugbee, and S. S. Crissey, Esqs. As the greater portion of the matter thus obtained is interwoven with what has been collected from various other sources, specific credit could not, in all cases, be given to these authors, without unpleasant interruptions of the nar- rative, and the disfigurement of the printed page. Thanks are also due to Dr. Taylor for the free use of his History of Portland. Having devoted to his work several years of careful investigation, it is presumed to be, as re- spects the history of that town, generally correct and reliable. Hence much of what appears in this work relating to the history of Portland, has been taken from, or is based upon, that History. The few errors discovered in it are in matter relating to other towns, and come from those hastily pre- pared, unreliable histories elsewhere referred to. Dr. Taylor has done his fellow-citizens a valuable service, for which, doubtless, they are duly grateful.
Matter was received from many sources after the greater portion of the work had been printed. Much of it was intended to supply omissions in pre- ceding pages, among which were parts of several biographical and family sketches accompanying portraits. This matter, together with some that had been prepared, and intended for the body of the work, appears in a " Sup- plement" of 50 pages, to which the special attention of the reader is invited. Much of this supplemental matter will be found arranged under the titles ot the towns to which portions of it properly belonged. Other parts of it, among which is a sketch of Chautauqua lake and its surroundings, have been prepared since the printing was far advanced.
Lastly, I congratulate myself on the termination of my arduous and pro- tracted labors. If those for whom these labors have been performed shall be satisfied, my highest object will have been attained.
A. W. Y.
December^ 187s.
CONTENTS.
CHAUTAUQUA ANTERIOR TO ITS PIONEER SETTLEMENT. The Mound Builders, 17. The Neutral and other Huron-Iroquois Nations, 20. The Je- suits, 24. Wars of the Huron-Nations, 25. La Salle, 26. Baron La Honton, 29. Indian Occupation, 30. Events leading to the French and Indian Wars, 34. Origin of the name Chautauqua, 35. The Portage-Road, 37. Washington's journey to French Creek, 45. The French War, 45. Pontiac's War, 48. Col. Broadhead's Expedi- tion, 50. British Expedition over Chautauqua Lake, in 1782, 51. Washington's cor- respondence v/ith Gen. Irvine, 54. Survey of the State Boundary Line, 60. Indian Wars, and the conclusion, 61.
PRELIMINARY HISTORY— HOLLAND COMPANY'S PURCHASE. Discovery of America ; British grants ; efforts to establish colonies, 63. Cession of West- ern lands to the general government, 64. Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, 64. Hol- land Company's Purchase, 66-9.
EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY. Controversy concerning the first settlement, 70. John and James McMahan's Purchases, 73. Settlements in Westfield, Ripley, and Canadaway, 73-6. Portland and Llanover, 76. South-east part of the county, 77. Chautauqua, 77. Kiantone, 77.
PIONEER HISTORY. Early dwellings, 78. Clearing land, 80. Wild animals, 81. Early farming, 85. Early cooking, 87. Fare of the early settlers, 88. Household manufactures, 89. Stores and trade, 91. Ashes a staple product, 94. Nature of trade, 97. Division of business, 98. REFLECTIONS ON PIONEER LIFE, 99-ioi. EDUCATION. Early schools ; course of instruction ; manner of teaching ; description of a school-house ; dunce block ; school fund, 102-4.
RELIGIOUS HISTORY. Early occupation of the county by missionaries — Rev. John Spencer, and others, 105-8. Gospel land, 108.
ORGANIZATION OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY. Division of the State into counties, 109-13. First county officers, 1 13. Building court- houses, 114. Division of the county into towns, 115.
EARLY ROADS. Old Portage Road, 1 16-17. Road from Pennsylvania to Chautauqua lake, 117. Mayville and Cattaraugus road, 118.
EARLY MAILS AND MAIL ROUTES. Early mail contractors, post-offices, and postmasters, 119-26.
POLICY OF THE HOLLAND LAND COMPANY. Price of land and terms of sale, 126. Condition of the settlers, 128. Sale of the Compa- ny's lands ; Genesee land tariff ; land-office destroyed, 129-31. Policy of Mr. Seward, 1 3 1-5. Cherry Valley Company's purchase, 135.
CONTENTS. XI
LA FAYETTE IN CHAUTAUQUA.
Sketch of La Fayette, 135. Reception at Westfield, 136. Reception at Fiedonia, 139-42.
TEMPERANCE HISTORY.
Drinking customs, 142. Temperance reform measures, 144-46.
ANTISLAVERY HISTORY.
Early measures of abolitionists ; violent opposition ; action of Congress, 146-8.
MEDICAL SOCIETIES.
Chautauqua County Medical Society, 148. Eclectic Medical Society, 148.
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.
Early encouraged by DeWitt Clinton, 149. Chautauqua County Agricultural Society
formed, i So.
RAILROADS ^N CHAUTAUQUA.
New York and Erie Railroad Company, 150. Celebration at Dunkirk, 151. Buffalo & Erie and other railroads, 153. Atlantic & Great Western Railway, 153. Dunkirk, Allegany & Pittsburgh and other railroads, 1 54-5.
POLITICAL HISTORY.
Early parties and their principles ; the federalists and republicans ; nature of the Union, 155-8. Alien and sedition laws ; Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, 158-60. Polit- ical parties in Chautauqua, 160-2. Parties in the state ; Clintonians and Bucktails, 162-6. Anti-masonic party, 166-9. American party, 1 69-7 1. Present parties, 1 71.
WAR HISTORY— War of 1812. Causes of the war ; war declared, 172-3. Chautauqua militia, 173-5. British cruisers ; bat- tle of Black Rock, 175-7. Officers of the militia companies ; results of the war, 178-81.
Civil War. Origin of the war, 182-4. Commencement of hostilities ; confederate government ; Lin- coln's proclamation, 184-6. Movements in the North; public meetings, 186-9. Further action of the govei-nment ; more troops raised, 189-91. Suspension of habeas corpus, 191. Close of the war, 193-4.
COUNTY NEWSPAPERS, 194-7, 634. OLD SETTLERS' FESTIVALS. Reunion at Fredonia, 197-207. Reiinion at Forestville, 207-210. Reiinion at James- town, 210-218.
THE GREAT ECLIPSE OF 1806, 218-19.
TOWN HISTORIES. ARKWRIGHT. Formation of the town, and its settlement, 220-25. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 225-27. Churches, 227. [See Supplement, 625.]
BUSTI.
Formation and settlement of the town, 227-33. Biographical and genealogical sketches,
233-41. Churches, 241.
CARROLL.
Formation of the town and its settlement, 241-6. Mills and factories, 247. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 248-50. Baptist church, 251. [Supplement— John Frew and Thomas Russell, 625. M. E. Church, 626.]
CHARLOTTE.
Formation and settlement of the town, 251-56. Dunkirk, Warren & Pittsburgh raih-oad, 257. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 258-61. Churches and Lodges, 261-2.
XU CONTENTS.
CHAUTAUQUA. Formation and settlement, 262-70. Emigration of the Prendergast family, 264-6. Bio- graphical and genealogical sketches, 270-83. Churches and other associations, 283-4. Supplement — Lowry Families, 626 ; insecurity of land titles in Western Pennsylva- nia, 627-9; Lovvrys, who settled in this county, and other settlers, 629-30.
CHERRY CREEK. Formation and settlement, 284-91. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 291-3. Churches, and other associations, 293-4.
CLYMER. Formation and settlement, 295-300. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 300-2. Churches, 302.
DUNKIRK.
Formation and settlement, 302-4. Village of Dunkirk, sketch of, 304-7. Manufactures, * 305-7, 630-31. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 307-12. Churches, 312-13.
ELLERY. Formation and settlement, 313-20. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 320-26. Churches, 326.
ELLICOTT.
Formation and settlement, 327-30. First Independence celebration, 331. Worksburg, 332. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 333-4. JAMESTOWN : its survey and settlement, 335-6. Mills, 336 ; rising of water in the lake, 337. Settlers in the vil- lage, 337-42. Territorial enlargement, 343. Village incorporated, 343. Manufac- tures, 344-50, Biographical and genealogical sketches, 350-72. Jamestown land association, 372. Cemeteries, 372. Churches and other associations, 373-6. Lum- ber manufacture, 376-9.
ELLINGTON.
Formation and settlement, 379-S4. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 385-6. Churches, 386-7.
FRENCH CREEK.
Formation and topography of the town, 388-9. Its settlement, 389-93. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 394-5. Churches, 395-6.
GERRY. When formed, 396. Settlement of, 396-9. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 400-2. Churches, 403.
HANOVER.
Erection and settlement of the town, 403-8. Silver Creek, 409-13. Great black- walnut tree, 414. Forestville, 413-15. Irving, 415-16. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 416-26. Churches, &c., 426-9.
HARMONY. Erection, description, and settlement of, 429-36. Mills, stores, &c., 437-8. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 438-43. Churches, 443-5.
KIANTONE.
Formation and description of, 445. Settlement of, 445-8. Biographical and genealogi- cal sketches, 449-51. Churches, 452.
MINA. Formation and settlement of, 452-6. JMills, stores, &c., 456-8. Churches, 459.
POLAND. '
Erection, description, and settlement of, 459-63. Mills, 463, Biographical and genea- logical sketches, 464-6. Churches, 466.
CONTENTS. • Xlll
POM FRET.
Formation and settlement of, 466-75. Fredonia Academy, &c., 475-6. Laona, 477-8. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 478-94. Churches, 494-6. [See also Sup- plement, town of Pomfret, 646.]
PORTLAND.
Formation, description, and settlement of, 497-9- Early mechanics, merchants, mills, &c., 500-3. Grape and wine culture, 504-6. Biographical and genealogical sketches, 506-9. Churches, 509-12. [See also Supplement, Portland, 647.]
RIPLEY. Formation, description, and settlement of, 512-16. Mills, stores, &c., 517-18. Bio- graphical sketches, 518-31. Churches, 531-2. [See Supplement, 640-2.]
SHERIDAN.
Formation and settlement of, 533-5. Biographical sketches, 535-44-
SHERMAN. Formation and settlement of, 544-7. Mills, machinery, &c., 547-8- Biographical sketches, 548-53. Churches, kc, 553-4- [See Supplement, 642.]
STOCKTON.
Formation and settlement of, 554-61. Early merchants, mechanics, mills, etc., 561-2. Biographical sketches, 563-71. Churches, 571-3. [See Supplement, 643-5.]
VILLENOVA. Erection and settlement of, 573-9. Mills, stores, and mechanics, 579-8o. Biographical sketches, 580-4. Churches, 584. [See Supplement, 645.]
WESTFIELD. Formation and settlement of, 584-8. Early stores, taverns, and physicians, 588-9. Mills, manufactories, etc., 590-I. " Warsaw club, " 592. Barcelona, 592. Biographical sketches, 593-615. Churches, 615-18. [See also Supplement, 646.]
SUPPLEMENT.
CHAUTAUQUA ANTIQUITIES.
A trench filled with human bones, uncovered in Harmony, 619-20. Indian mounds in Ellicott, 620.
INDIANS.
Reservations, on the Holland Purchase— Cattaraugus Reservation, 621. Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, and Tonawanda, 622. Tuscarora, 623.
COLD SUMMER — 623-4. ARKWRIGHT.
William Wilcox, genealogical sketch of, 623. [See portrait and sketch, 227.]
CARROLL.
John Frew and Thomas Russell, early settlers in this town, 625-6. Methodist Episcopal Church, 626.
CHAUTAUQUA.
Lowry Families, 626-9. Land titles in North-western Pennsylvania, 627-9. Additional names of settlers in Mayville, 629-30.
DUNKIRK.
Locomotive works, and other manufacturing establishments, 630-I. Churches, 631-2.
ELLICOTT — ^JAMESTOWN.
Family sketches of R. E. Fenton, Corydon Hitchcock, and N. A. Lowry, 632-3.
XIV . CONTENTS.
HANOVER.
.Sketches of J. G. Hopkins, S. J. Smith, 633-4. Chautauqua Farmer, 634.
HARMONY.
Morris Norton, Charles Parker, and Stephen W. Steward, 634-5.
POLAND.
William Falconer, Varanus Page, 635. Churches, 635-6.
POMFRET.
Settlement and sketches of additional settlers in this towTi, 636-9. Manufactures, 639. M. E. church, 639. H. Bosworth, N. D. Snow, R. H. Hall, W. H. Abell, 646-7.
RIPLEY.
Judd W. Cass and John B. Dinsmore, early settlers, 640. Elihu and Dudley Marvin, 641.
SHERMAN.
Josiah R. Keeler, an early settler in this town, and a prominent citizen, 642.
STOCKTON.
Ellsworth family, 643. Fisher families, 643-4. Sawyer Phillips' family, 644.
VILLENOVA.
Villeroy Balcom, an early settler ; biographical sketch of, 645. Freewill Baptist church, organization and sketch of, 645-6.
WESTFIELD.
Sherman Williams, correction of biographical sketch of, 646.
CONEWANGO, CATTARAUGUS CO.
Thomas J. Wheeler, biographical and genealogical sketch of, 647-8.
RETIREMENT OF JUDGES. Judges Elial T. Foote and Thomas B. Campbell decline reappointments ; action of the court thereon, 648-50.
BANKS, 650-2.
OFFICIAL REGISTER.
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.
Appointment of, by council of appointment, for Genesee county, and of Niagara, 652.
CORONERS.
Appointments for Genesee and Niagara counties, 652.
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS.
Election of, in the districts of which Chautauqua was a part, 652-3.
STATE SENATORS. The districts Ihey represented, and the years in which they served, 653.
MEMBERS OF ASSEMBLY.
The districts and counties they represented, and the years in which they served, 654.
DELEGATES TO CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTIONS.
The districts or counties they represented, and the year of each convention, 655.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS.
From districts including the county of Chautauqua, 655.
CIRCUIT AND COUNTY JUDGES, JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT, 655-6.
DISTRICT ATTORNEYS, SURROGATES, SHERIFFS, CLERKS, TREASURERS, 656-7.
SUPERINTENDENTS OF POOR, AND OF COMMON SCHOOLS, 658.
CHAUTAUQUA LAKE. A summer lesort ; its steamers, 659-62 ; hotels, 662-3. ^^^^ Point, Point Chautauqua, 663-5.
^ REAL AND PERSONAL ESTATE, TAXES, POPULATION, 665-6. NOTES AND CORRECTIONS, 657.
EMBELLISHMENTS.
Abell, Moseley W.,
Abell, Thomas G., Sketch, . .
Abell, William H.,
Allen, Augustus F.,
Angell, Cyrus D.,
Baker, Henry,
Balcom, Villeroy,
Baldwin, Levi,
Barker, Leverett, .
Barker, George, .
Barrett, Samuel, .
Bemus, Charles, .
Benedict, Odin,
Bentley, Uriah,
Bishop, Elijah,
Blasdell, Stephen, Bliss, Elam C, Ely, Theron S., . Brewer, Francis B., Brigham, Willar<l W. Brockway, Burban, Brown, Samuel A., Bumell, Madison, Burritt, Charles, . Campbell, Thomas B Chandler, Woodley W.
Sketch, . . Chapin, James E., Cook, Orsell, . Couch, Warren, . Gushing, Zattu, Gushing, William B., Dewey, Lester R., Dorman, Bearing, Drake, Jeremiah C, Eason, David,
Sketch, . . Eaton, David, . Edson, John M., . Ellsworth, Jeremiah, Ellsworth, Stukely, Farwell, Omar, Fenlon, William H.,
307 126 478 478 350 416 352
645 225
479 480
353 321 322 233 354 291
593 234 594 308
519 355 356 481
595 332 357 596 357 597 482
483 549 545 598 74 599 506 258 419
643 272
359
I'AGE.
Fenton, Reuben E., 358
Sketch, 358, 632
Fletcher, Adolphus, 3^2
Foote, Elial T., . . . . Frontispiece.
Sketch, 359
Foote, Charles C, 361
Frank, Michael, 237
Gage, Charles B., 420
Gifford, William 271
Gleason, Hiram N., 55°
Griffith, John, 323
Griswold, John E., 54°
Hall, John P., 485
Hall, Ralph H., 486
Sketch, 486, 647
Hall, Asa, 600
Hazeltine, Daniel, 3^4
Hinkley, Watson S., 601
Hitchcock, Corydon, 632
Houghton, Jacob, 587
Hungerford, Sextus H., .... 602
Jones, Solomon, 3^5
Jones, Ellick, 366
Kent, Joseph, 293
Kip, Benjamin H., 55 '
La Due, Joshua, 5°8
Leland, Cephas R., 421
Lowry, Morrow B., 273
Maples, Charles G., 325
Marshall, John E '. • • 274
Marvin, Richard P., 367
Marvin, Dudley, 641
Mayborne, Wm. A., 277
McKenzie, Donald, 276
McMahan, James, 7°
Sketch, 604
Minton, John H., 605
Mixer, Nathan, 422
Montgomery, James, 606
Mprian, Jacob, 488
MuUett, James, 489
Orton, Samuel G., 525
Osborne, Thomas A., . . . ... 277
Patterson, George W., 607
EMBELLISHMENTS.
Pattison, Jonathan S., 543
Peacock, William, 278
Pier, Rufus, 368
Plumb, Alvin 608
Prendergast, Matthew, 279
Prendergast, Jediah, . . . . • . 280
Prendergast, James, 335
Prendergast, Alex. T., 447
Prendergast, Stephen, 526
Prendergast, Henry A., .... 527
Pullman, Lewis, 647
Rice, Victor M., 301
Risley, Elijah, 490
Robertson, John R., 281
Sackett, Niram, 423
Shepard, Fitch, 370
Sherman, Daniel, 424
Sixbey, Herman, 610
Skinner, Otis, 552
Slawson, Silas N., 425
Smallwood, John, 528
Smith, Austin, 61 1
Smith, Philip M., 385
Smith, R(-daey B., 426
Snow, Noah D., 491
Sketch, 491, 646
Southland, Judson, 240
Spencer, John, 612
vSprague, Jonathan, 492
Steward, John, 441
Steward, Sardius, 442
Steward, Stephen W. 635
S trunk, William H. 333
Taylor, Horace C, 5°9
Tinker, Reuben, 613
Tracy, Jedediah, 282
Warren, Amos K., 571
Warren, Chauncey, 57°
Warren, Emory F., 493
Wells, Austin L., 614
White, Squire, 494
Wilcox, William, 227
Sketch, 227, 625
Williams, Daniel 443
Williams, Sherman, 615
Sketch, 615, 646
Willson, John I., 37'
Wilson, W^illiam R., 402
Winsor, Samuel B., 372
Young, Andrevv W., 5
Sketch, 529
Young, Charles P., 530
Note. — Some persons who have furnished portraits, paid for the number at first supposed to be necessary to supply the whole edition of the History. It was subsequently ascertained that a larger edition would be needed to supply the demand.^ Some of those who had paid for the smaller number being indisposed to increase the expense, or being satisfied with that number, their portraits do not appear in the entire edition. Two or three may yet be added, which are not mentioned in the above list.
Corrections. — A few errors have been discovered in the printed sheets, which are noticed and corrected on page 667.
Abbreviations.— The letter t., or //., signifies township ; and r. signifies range. The interrogation point in parenthesis marks (?) means quay, and indicates that the preceding • statement is doubtful, and needs further inquiry.
HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA ANTERIOR TO ITS PIONEER SETTLEMENT.
BY OBED EDSON.
The Mound Builders.
The pioneers of Chautauqua county found it an unbroken wilderness ; yet often when exploring its silent depths, where forest shadows hung deepest, they were startled at the discovery of unmistakable evidences of its having been anciently inhabited by a numerous people. Crowning the brows of hills that were flanked by dark ravines ; along the shores of its lakes and streams ; in its valleys at numerous points, were the plain traces of their industr}^ ; earthworks or fortifications mostly circular ; pits bearing marks of use by fire ; ancient highways and mounds, in which lay buried mouldering skeletons ; and later, where forests had given place to cultivated fields, the spade and plow in the spring time, made strange revelations of rude imple- ments of war and peace, and oftentimes of the crumbling relics of an ancient burial place. At first these monuments were believed to be of European origin; and patient research was made among early records for an account of events happening upon the eastern continent, a little prior to and about the time of the discovery of America, that would afford an explanation of their existence. But the great age of the forest trees growing above them, and other marks of antiquity, demonstrated this belief to be unfounded. A solution of the mystery was then sought among the traditions of the aborig- ines ; but careful investigation has proved these ruins to be so old that tradition can throw no light upon them ; and that they cannot be the work of the ancestors of the Indians found here.
Compiencing near the centre of the state, they extend westwardly. Over Chautauqua county they were thickly strewn ; farther to the west and south, in the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, these ancient remains were still more numerously found, in larger dimensions, and it is evident of much greater antiquity. There, for a long period of time, must havg dwelt a large and industrious people. The geometric precision with which their works were constructed ; the fine workmanship of their pottery ; their ornaments and implements made of copper, silver and porphyry ; the remarkable skill.
20 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
from Mill creek, was once an earth-work, circular in form, within which was a deep excavation. The excavation and intrenchment have long since disappeared, and now, from this commanding eminence so inclosed, a beau- tiful prospect may be had of the village and the surrounding hills.
Extending along the northern and southern boundary of the plateau, on which a principal part of the village is situated, were two earthen breast- works. Between these two embankments, the main fortifications seemed to be situated. It was an extensive circular earth-work, having a trench with- out, and a gateway opening to a small stream that passed along its southern side. This work inclosed six or seven acres of what is now a central portion of the village. A part of the main street, portions of other streets, and the village green, all were included within this old inclosure.
At other points, within the town of Gerry, and in the town of Stockton, were remains of similar earth-works, and other evidences of an early occupa- tion. In the town of Ellington, at different places along the terrace of low hills, that borders either side of the valley of Clear creek, there existed, at the first settlement of the county, the remains of many of these circular in- closures, in the vicinity of which, stone implements and other relics have been plentifully discovered. Along the shore and outlet of Chautauqua lake, were numerous mounds and other vestiges. Two of these old tumuli, and the traces of an old roadway, are still visible near the eastern shore of Chautauqua lake, at Griflith's Point, in the town of Ellery.
The description thus far given of the aboriginal monuments found in these localities, will suffice for a further account of those that were found numer- ously distributed in other parts of the 'county ; for they all bear the same general resemblance. They prove this region, to have once been a favorite resort of an early race. Whence they came, how long they remained, and what fortunes attended their existence, we have no record of. There can be little doubt, however, that here were once rudely cultivated fields, ancient and perhaps populous villages, inhabited by a strange and primitive people.
' ' But they are gone, V\''ith their old forests wide and deep,
And we have built our houses upon Fields where their generations sleep.
Their fountains slake our thirst at noon ; Upon their fields our harvest waves ;
Our lovers woo beneath their moon — Then let us spare, at least, their graves ! "
The Neutral and other Huron-Iroquois Nations.
What races of people occupied the territory comprising the county of Chautauqua, during the many centuries that elapsed after the Mound Build- ers had passed away, and until the coming of Europeans to the states of this continent, there remains no authentic information ; only such vague and unsatisfactory accounts as tradition gives us : and had a reliable record been preserved of the exploits of savage warfare, and of the monotonously recur- ring revolutions incident to the history of a barbarous people, during so
THE NEUTRAL AND OTHER HURON-IROQUOIS NATIONS. 21
long a period of time, it is doubtful whether it would afford us much instruc- tion or entertainment.
When the interior of this continent first became known to Europeans, a great family of Indian nations, composed of the most warlike tribes that then inhabited North America, possessed all of Upper Canada, nearly all of New York, and the greater parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and a portion of Lower Canada, and of the Carolinas. They were known as the Huron-Iro- quois, and spoke in the same generic tongue, sometimes called the Wyandot. They were greatly superior in intellect, courage, and military skill to all the other Indians of North America. They dwelt in permanent villages, situ- ated in defensible positions, rudely fortified with a ditch and rows of pali- sades. They practiced agriculture to a limited extent, and frequently, by a long and laborious process of burning and hacking with axes of stone, cleared extensive tracts of land, which they rudely cultivated with hoes of wood and bone. By reason of their native superiority; and by their having fixed places of abode, they became more advanced in the arts of life, than the other wandering tribes of North America. Entirely surrounding this family of warlike nations, but always shrinking before their fierce valor, was a great number of independent tribes ; all speaking languages radically different from that of the Wyandot. The general resemblance that has been found to exist among these numerous tribes, has caused them to be classed under the general name Algonquin. Beyond the territory of the Algonquin, and in the western and southern portions of the United States, were other tribes of Indians speaking still other languages.*
The Huron-Iroquois family of tribes were sub-divided into several formid- able nations ; of these the Hurons dwelt in many villages, upon the small peninsula lying between the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, and Lake Simcoe in Upper Canada.! Near to and south of the Hurons, among the Blue Mountains of Canada, dwelt the Tionnontates, or Tobacco nation | South of the Huron and Tobacco nations, was the country of the Attiwandarons, Neutral nation or called the Kahkwas by the Senecas. Their territory extended one hundred and twenty miles along the northern shore of Lake Erie, and across the Niagara river into the state of New York, as far east as the western limits of the Iroquois. They dwelt in forty villages ; three or four of which were east of the Niagara river and Lake Erie.§ One of their villages was located, it is believed, on a branch of the Eighteen Mile creek, near White's Corners, in Erie county, in this State. || Their territory extended west over Chautauqua county, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is believed, some distance into the state of Ohio. The Kahkwas, or Neutrals, were the first occupants of the soil of Chautaucpia
*3 Bancroft, Chap. xxii. Quackenbos, Chap. ii. Parker's Jesuits in North America, xix.
"t Jesuits in North America, xxv. J Jesuits in North America, xliii.
§ Lalemant Relation des Hurons, 1648. According to Hennepin, their territory extended along the south side of Lake Erie into the state of Ohio, as far west as the middle point in the south shore of Lake Erie.
OO. H. Marshall.
22 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
county of whom we have any account. They were a singular race ot people ; were great hunters, and were extremely superstitious, and ferocious in their manners. They waged fierce wars against the Nation of Fire and other western Indians. A letter from Father Lalemant to the Provincial of Jesuits in France, dated at St. Mary's Mission, May 19, 1641, contains many interesting facts concerning them. He says :
"Jean De Brebeuf, and Joseph Marie Chaumonot, two Fathers of our company which have charge of the mission to the Neutral nation, set out from SA Marie on the 2d day of November, 1640, to visit this people. Father Brebeuf is peculiarly fitted for such an expedition, God having in an eminent degree endowed him with a capacity for learning languages. His compan- ion was also considered a proper person for the enterprise.
" Although many of our French in that quarter have visited this people to profit by their furs and other commodities, we have no knowledge of any who have been there to preach the gospel, except Father De La Roche Dallion a Recollect, who passed the winter there in the year 1626.
" The nation is very populous, there being estimated about forty villages. After leaving the Hurons, it is four or five days' journey, or about forty leagues, to the nearest of their villages ; the course being nearly due south. If, as indicated by the latest and most exact observations we can make, our new station, St. Marie, in the interor of the Huron country, is in north latitude about 44 degrees, 25 minutes, then the entrance of the Neuter nation from the Huron side is about 42)^ degrees. More exact surveys and observations cannot now be made, for the sight of a single instrument would bring to extremes those who cannot resist the temptation of an ink horn.
" From the first village of the Neuter nation that we met with in travel- ing from this place, as we proceeded south or south-east, it is about four days' travel to the place where the celebrated river of the nation empties into Lake Ontario, or St. Louis. On the west side of that river, and not on the east, are the most numerous of the villages of the Neuter nation. There are three or four on the east side, extending from east to west towards the Fries, or Cat nation.
'■ This river is that by which our great lake of the Hurons, or fresh sea, is discharged; which first empties into the lake of Erie, or of the nation of the Cat; from thence it enters the territory of the Neuter nation and takes the name of Onguiaahra [Niagara], until it empties into Ontario or St. Louis lake, from which latter flows the river which passes Quebec, called the St. Lawrence ; so that if we once had control of the side of the lake nearest the residence of the Iroquois, we could ascend by the river St. Lawrence with- out danger, even to the Neuter nation and much beyond, with great saving of time and trouble.
"According to the estimate of these illustrious Fathers who have been there, the Neuter nation comprises about 12,000 souls; which enables them to furnish 4,000 warriors, notwithstanding war, pestilence and famine have pre- vailed among them for three years in an extraordinary manner.
" After all, I think that those who have heretofore ascribed such an extent and population to this nation, have understood by the Neuter nation, all who live south and south-west of our Hurons, and who are truly in great number, being at first only partially known, and all being comprised under the same name. The most perfect knowledge of their language and country which has
THE NEUTRAL AND OTHER HURON-HiOQUOIS NATIONS. 2;
since been obtained, has resulted in a clear distinction between the tribes. Our French, who first discovered this people, named them the ' Neuter nation;' and not without reason; for their country being' the ordinary passage by land between some of the Iroquois nations and the Hurons, who are sworn enemies, they remained at peace with both ; so that in times past, the Hurons and Iroquois, meeting in the same wigwam or village of that nation, were both in safety while they remained. Recently their enmity against each other is so great, that there is no safety for either party in any place, particu- larly for the Hurons, for whom the Neuter nation entertains the least good will.
" There is every reason for believing, that not long since, the Hurons, Iroquois, and Neuter nation, formed one people, and originally came from the same family, but have, in the lapse of time, become separated from each other, more or less, in distance, interest and affection, so that some are now enemies, others neutral, and others still live in intimate friendship and inter- course.
" The food and clothing of the Neuter nation seem little different from that of our Hurons. They have Indian corn, beans and gourds in equal abundance. Also plenty of fash, some kinds of which abound in particular places only.
" They are much employed in hunting deer, buffalo, wild cats, wolves, wild boars, beaver and other animals. Meat is very abundant this year, on account of the heavy snow which has aided the hunters. It is rare to see snow in this country more than half a foot deep. But this year it is more than three feet. There is also abundance of wild turkeys, which go in flocks in the fields and woods.
"Their fruits are the same as with the Hurons, except chestnuts, which are more abundant, and crab apples, which are somewhat larger.
" The men, like all savages, cover their naked flesh with skins, but are less particular than the Hurons in concealing what should not appear. The squaws are ordinarily clothed, at least from the waist to the knees, but are more free and shameless in their immodesty tlmn the Hurons. As for their remaining customs and manners, they are almost entirely similar to the other savage tribes of the country.
" There are some things in which they differ from our Hurons. They are larger, stronger, and better formed. They also entertain a great affection for the dead, and have a greater number of fools and jugglers.
" The Sonontonhernonos [Senecas], one of the Iroquois nations, the near- est to, and most dreaded by the Hurons, are not more than a day's journey distant from the eastermost village of the Neuter nation, named Onguia- ahra [Niagara], of the same name as the river.
" Our Fathers returned from the mission in safety, not having found in all the eighteen villages which they visited but one, named Klee-o-e-to-a, or St. Michael, which gave them the reception which their embassy deserved In this village, a certain foreign nation, which lived beyond Lake Erie, or the nation of the Cat, named A-onen-re-ro-non, has taken refuge for many years for fear of their enemies ; and they seem to have been brought here by a good Providence to hear the word of God."
The Andastes dwelt upon the lower Susquehanna.* To the south of Lake Erie, and west of the Neuter nation, dwelt a warlike nation of the Huron- * Shea. See Hist, Mag. ii. 294.
24 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
Iroquois family, named the Eries or Nation of the Cat, so called from the great number of wild, cats infesting their country.* They are referred to in the foregoing letter of Father L'AUemant. The Eries were valiant warriors, and for a long time were a terror to the Iroquois ; they had no fire-arms, but fought with poisoned arrows, which they discharged, it is said, with surpris- ing rapidity.!
The most intelligent and advanced of this great Wyandot family of nations, and likewise the most terrible and ferocious, were the Five Nations, or Iro- quois proper. About 1539, they became bound together by an extraordi- nary league, and resided in the middle and eastern part of the state of New York, where, dwelling in numerous villages, they remained during the long and terrible wars that they subsequently waged against both savages and Europeans. The tribes composing this nation extended through the state of New York, from east to west, in the following order, viz. : Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. The fiercest and most numerous of these tribes was the Seneca ; it occupied as far west as the Genesee river.
The first knowledge had by Europeans of the regions about Lake Erie, and of the people who inhabited them, was obtained by the French in Can- ada. French enterprise outstripped the English, in effecting a permanent settlement of this continent north of the state of Virginia. James Cartier, a French navigator, as early as the year 1534, sailed up the river St. Law- rence, as far as Montreal, then the site of the ancient Indian village of Hochelaga. Here he learned from the Indians, for the first time, of the exist- ence of the great lakes and the Mississippi river. He erected a cross and a shield, and named the country New France, and returned. Afterwards the French made repeated attempts to settle Canada. In the year 1608, Quebec was founded by Champlain. In 161 5, Champlain, who was fond of adven- turous exploits, with a party of his countrymen, ascended the upper waters of the Ottawa river in Canada, crossed over, and discovered Lake Huron. Here he was joined by large bands of Hurons who dwelt there, and with these allies he traversed the wilderness of Upper Canada, crossed Lake Ontario, entered the territory of the Iroquois, who were the mortal foes of the Hurons, and fought a battle with the Senecas, which is supposed to have occurred in Onondaga county in this state.
The Jesuits.
In 1 6 15, five years before the May Flower left Plymouth, in England, there -came over with Champlain from France, to bear the cross through pathless wilds, and among the savage tribes of America, missionaries of the order of St. Francis; and previous to the year 1625, three of their number, Le Caron, Viel, and Sagard, had reached the Neutral nation. These perhaps were the first Europeans who visited Western New York ; and the^ winter of 1626 was passed by De La Roche Dallion, a Franciscan, among this people. In 1625, the Franciscans were followed by the Jesuits, who
*Le Mercier Relation, 1654, 10. , t Jesuits in North America, xlvi.
WARS OF THE HURON-IROQUOIS NATIONS.
soon commenced instructing the tribes of the North and West, and who, for one hundred and fifty years thereafter, labored among them with unbounded zeal and self-devotion. The most of the knowledge that we have concerning these remote regions, and the events transpiring here in that early day, was obtained from the very full and careful reports thA these ancient mission- aries annually transmitted to their superiors in France, which have been pre- served in Paris, and which are called the Relations of the Jesuits. Two of these missionaries, Jean De Brebeuf and Joseph Marie Chaumonot, as appears by the letter of Father L'Allemant, in November, 1640, visited the Neutral nation, to preach to them the gospel, but it is not certain that they crossed the Niagara river. At this time, no Englishman of whom we have any account, had reached the basin of the St. Lawrence. Before this time, besides these priests, many Frenchmen had visited the Neutral nation, to purchase of them furs and other commodities. These constituted the near- est approaches that at that time any Europeans had made to Chautauqua county that we have any account of. Bancroft says: "Previous to 1640, by continued warfare with the Mohawks, the French had been excluded from the navigation of Lake Ontario, and had never launched a canoe upon Lake Erie ; their avenue to the West was by the way of the Ottawa and French rivers, so that the whole coast of Ohio and South Michigan remained unknown, except as seen by missionaries from their stations in Canada."
Wars of the Huron-Iroquois Nations.
When, in 1634, the first mission was estabhshed by the Jesuits among the Hurons, they found them and their kinsmen, the Iroquois, implacable foes, and engaged in a fierce war that had then been waged between them for many years. This war continued during the residence of the Jesuits among the Hurons, with success oftenest, but not always, in favor of the Iroquois, until the year 1648, when a war party of the Iroquois surprised and burned two fortified Huron towns, taking prisoners or massacring all their inhabi- tants. The next year, one thousand Iroquois warriors entered the heart of the Huron country undiscovered, and inflicted a terrible blow upon their enemies. They burned two more fortified towns of the Hurons, massacred their inhabitants, and the French missionaries residing there. They were, however, finally driven back by the fierce valor of the Hurons, but not until they had inflicted a fatal blow upon them. The Hurons, fearing other attacks, now abandoned their villages, scattered themselves in many direc- tions, and thereafter ceased to exist as a nation.*
Although the Neutral nation waged a fierce war against the Nation of Fire, who dwelt in Michigan in thirty villages, it maintained a strict neutrality between the Hurons and Iroquois during these wars.t This did not save
* Jesuits in North America, 361 to 402.
+ "Last summer two thousand warriors of the Neutral nation attacked a town of the Nation of Fire well fortified with a palisade, and defended by 900 warriors. They took it after a siege of ten days ; killed many on the spot, and made 800 prisoners, men, women,
26 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
it, however, from the fierce Iroquois. In the year 1650, the latter commenced a savage war upon them ; and in the autumn of that year, they assaulted and took one of their chief towns, in which were sixteen hundred men, besides women and children. In the spring of 165 1, they captured another of these towns, butchering and lading into captivity great numbers of the Neutrals, and driving the remainder from their villages and corn fields into the forests, where thousands of them perished. The destruction of the Neutrals was so great, in this cruel war, as to wholly wipe them out as a nation ; and now no trace remains of this warlike and powerful tribe who once possessed the territory of this county but their name.* The scene of their final overthrow is believed to have occurred near the city of Buffalo.
With the destruction of their kinsmen of the Huron and Neutral nations, the Iroquois did not rest. The Eries, whose dominions extended along the south shore of Lake Erie, next fell victims to their savage fury. In 1655, from one thousand two hundred to one thousand eight hundred Iroquois warriors moved into the territory of the Eries, who withdrew at their approach with their women and children. The whole force of the Iroquois embarked in canoes upon Lake Erie ; and it is probable that this fierce horde coasted along the shores of Chautauqua county ; and a more wild and savage scene cannot well be imagined than this ferocious gathering of bar- barians presented, when on this bloody expedition of revenge. They found the Eries gathered in a position, the location of which is not now known. An assault was made with such savage fury by the Iroquois, as to enable them to carry the fort ; and a slaughter so terrible ensued, as to wholly destroy the Eries. t The Iroquois next made war upon the Andastes, who resided upon the Susquehanna, and who were the last of the HuronTroquois or Wyandot family that remained unconquered. The Andastes made a brave and stubborn resistance, but were obliged to yield, in 1675, to the superior numbers of the Iroquois. :{:
The accounts of the destruction of these ancient Indian nations, we have mostly from the written narratives of the Jesuits residing at that time with the Indians of Canada and New York ; and various traditions are extant respecting these occurrences. From the extirpation of the Neutral nation to its settlement by the pioneers of the Holland Purchase, the territory com- prising Chautauqua county continued to be the home of the Senecas, the fiercest and most numerous of the Iroquois nation.
La Salle.
The missionaries who came from France were most excellent and able men. In their zeal to christianize the Indian, they became the pioneers of the North-west. One of their number, Allouez, in 1665, explored the
and children. After burning 70 of the best warriors, they put out the eyes of the old men, and cut away their lips, and left them to drag out a miserable existence. Behold the scourge that is depopulating all this country." — Relation des Hiirons, 1644, 98. * Jesuits in North America, 436. f Jesuits in North America, 438. X Relation, 1676, 2.
LA SALLE. 27
country about Lake Superior, and taught the Indians there. He first discov- ered the Pictured Rocks, and learned of the coi^per mines.^^^ Robert Cave- her de La Salle, a resolute and talented young Frenchman, who afterwards became the proprietor of Fort Frontenac in Canada, and the wilderness around about it, resolved to explore these regions and the vast prairies of the West, and to reach the Ohio and Mississippi, of which the Indians had informed him. July 6, 1669, he left La Chine in Canada, ascended the St. Lawrence, coasted along the southern shore of Lake Ontario to the Irondequoit Bay, and thence penetrated into the state &f New York, to the Indian villages of the Senecas, near the Genesee river, with a view of traveling farther in that direction, until he should reach the head waters of the Allegany and Ohio, After remaining here awhile, he abandoned this design, and with his com- panions from thence traveled west, crossed the Niagara river into Upper Canada, and passed the winter of 1669 and 1670 on Grand river, near to the shore of Lake Erie. In the spring following, he coasted along the northern shore of the lake, west, to the east side of Long Point ; and thence he returned to Montreal by the circuitous route of the Sault de St. Marie and the Ontario river, where he arrived June 18, 1670.!
In -1 67 3, Marquette, a missionary, and Joliet, a French citizen of Quebec, with a few companions, explored the Mississippi, between the mouths of the Wisconsin and Arkansas ; but before that year La Salle, it is said, made other wonderful journeys in the West; that he reached the Ohio, and visited the falls at Louisville, and had even descended the Illinois to its confluence with the Mississippi. He possessed a most adventurous and enterprising spirit ; and these journeys aroused in him a desire to make new discoveries and more extended explorations. He first conceived the design of uniting the French possessions in Canada with the valley of the Mississippi, by a line of military posts, to secure its conmierce to his country, and at the same time completely encircle the British colonies in North America. Having obtained the sanction of Louis XIV. to his projects, in the fall of the year 1678, he, with a party of Frenchmen, in a large canoe, entered the Niagara river, and established at its mouth, on its eastern bank, a trading post, which he inclosed with palisades. This constituted the first occupation of Western New York by civilized men, and the founding of Fort Niagara — a fortress which, for nearly a century and a half, filled an important place in the history of Canada, the northern portion of the United States, and of the Indian tribes dwelling in that region.
* 2 Hildieth, IIO.
+ O. H. Marshall, Esq., to whom the author is indebted for the facts respecting this expedition of La Salle, on a recent visit to France, examined the valuable collections of unpublished manuscripts relating to early French explorations in America, novir in the possession of M. Pierre Margry, of Paris, and was permitted to make copious extracts from a copy of the journal of this expedition of La Salle. An appropriation of $10,000 has been made by Congress for the publication of these recently discovered manuscripts and maps in M. Margry's possession, which, when issued, will contain many volumes of great interest to students of American history.
28 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
In January, 1679, La Salle commenced building a vessel at the mouth of the Cayuga creek, a stream that empties into the Niagara river, at the village of La Salle, in Niagara county, in the state of New York, a few miles above the falls. By August it was finished, and completely equipped with sails, masts, and everything needful, and launched upon the waters of the upper Niagara river. It was a bark of sixty tons burthen, and was armed with seven small cannon, and named the Griffin. It was the first vessel that ever spread its sails to the breezes of Lake Erie.
On the 7th day of August, 1679, lA Salle, Tonti, his Italian lieutenant, and Father Louis Hennepin, and twenty-nine others, in the presence of many Iroquois warriors, fired all their cannon and arquebuses, and set sail for the foot of Lake Erie, steering west-south-west ; on that day they made many leagues, passing Chautauqua county. Hennepin, in his narrative, states that he saw, on this voyage, the two distant shores of the lake, fifteen or sixteen leagues apart. They were the first Europeans of whom we have any account, that beheld the rugged and forest covered hills of Chautauqua. La Salle continued his voyage until the Griffin cast anchor in Green Bay, on the north-western coast of Lake Michigan. She was loaded with a cargo of furs, and sent upon her return voyage, but was never heard of more. After the departure of the Griffin, La Salle for awhile awaited her return with a portion of his party, at the mouth of the St. Joseph's river. Cruelly disappointed, but undismayed, he pushed on into the state of Illinois, where he built a fort which he called Creve Coeur, in token of his grief He sent Hennepin, with two companions, to the Mississippi, which they ascended to the Falls of St. Anthony. In March, 1 680, La Salle, with three campanions, set out from his fort in Illinois for Fort Frontenac, at the foot of Lake^Onta- rio. Depending upon his gun alone for his supplies, he chose for his route the ridge of high lands which divide the basin of the Ohio from that of the Lakes.
This long journey of nearly one thousand miles through the wilderness, he and his companions accomplished on foot. La Salle returned to his fort in Illinois from Fort Frontenac, with recruits and supplies. He then descended the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, and again journeyed back to Canada, and crossed the sea to France, where his government furnished him with four vessels, with which he again crossed the ocean, and landed at the Bay of Matagorda, in the state of Texas. With a few companions he traversed Texas, and penetrated as far as New Mexico, where he spent much of the year 1686, with twenty others. While on his way from New Mexico to Canada, he was assassinated by a treacherous companion. Thus perished this bold pioneer, who will long be remembered as one of the most remarkable explorers that ever visited the American continent. To follow La Salle in his wanderings at this day, with all the modern facilities of travel, would be regarded as no small achievement.*
* History of the Holland Purchase, 116.
BARON LA HONTAN. 29
Baron La Hontan.
In 1687, Denonville, governor of Canada, with a large party of French and Indians, landed upon the shore of Lake Ontario, and penetrated into the territory of the Senecas. Lie fought a battle with them near the site of the village of Victor, in the county of Ontario. He afterwards, in the same year, arrived at Niagara, which, from a trading post, he changed to a sanitary station, by erecting there a fort of four bastions. But the French were compelled, the following year, to abandon Niagara, by the hostile Iroquois, who were then waging a terrible and successful war against them.-" Among the French officers who accompanied Denonville on this expedition, was Baron La Hontan. This officer, with some Frenchmen, and the returning western Indian allies of Denonville, departed from Fort Niagara, coasted along the northern shore of Lake Erie, and arrived at the French post of St. Joseph. He afterwards joined a party of the western Indians, and invaded the territory of the Iroquois, south of Lake Erie ; but did not come within the limits of Chautauqua county. He, however, in his travels obtained sufficient information to give a very interesting description of Lake Erie and the country around it, which he saw in 1688. In the course of this account of the lake, he says :
" Lake Erie is justly dignified with the illustrious name of Conti ; for assuredly it is the finest upon earth. You may judge of the goodness of the climate from the latitude of the countries which surround it. Its circum- ference extends 230 leagues, but it aff'ords everywhere a charming prospect; and its shores are decked with oak trees, elms, chestnuts, walnut, apple, plum trees, and vines which bear their fine clusters up to the very tops of the trees, upon a sort of ground that Hes as smooth as one's hand. Such ornaments as these are sufficient to give rise to the most agreeable idea of a landscape in the world. I can not express what quantities of deer and turkeys are to be found in these woods, and in the vast meadows that lie upon the south side of the lake. At the foot of the lake we find wild beeves [buftaloes], on the banks of two pleasant streams that disembogue into it, without cataracts or rapid cun-ents. It abounds with sturgeon and whitefish, but trouts are very scarce in it, as well as the other fish that we take in the Lakes Hurons [Huron] and Illinese [Michigan]. It is clear of shelves, rocks, and banks of sand, and has fourteen or fifteen fathoms water. The savages assure us that it is never disturbed by high winds except in the months of December, January, and February, and even then but seldom, which I am very apt to believe, for we had very few storms when I wintered in my fort, in 1688, though the fort lay open to the Lake of Hurons."
There is no doubt, as appears from this extract, that the American bison, or buffalo, once inhabited these regions. They once ranged in some parts of the United States, nearly to the Atlantic seaboard. Charlevoix, the French traveler, says, that in 1720, "there were on the south side of Lake Erie, a prodigious quantity of buffaloes."t But we at this day must seek
* I Doc. History of New York.
1 1 Irving's Life of Washington, 335. The River Aux Boeuf, a tributary of French creek, was so named from the great number of buffaloes there found. — Pa. Hist. Collections,
30 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
the buffalo two thousand miles away in the Far West ! They and their red brother, the Indian, are fast disappearing. Surely and rapidly are these lords of the forest and the plain yielding up their once wide domain to the advance of the encroaching white man, and making their home each year nearer, and still nearer, to the setting sun.
Indian Occupation'.
At first, the Allegany and Ohio were regarded by the French and Indians as one stream ; Belle Riviere being the name given to it in French ; Alle- gany in the Delaware tongue ; and Oheeo in the Seneca ; all meaning, when translated, " fair or beautiful water." The territory lying west of the Alle- gany mountains, traversed by this river from the southern boundary of New York to the eastern limits of Ohio, after the destruction of the Neutrals and the Andastes, fell into the possession of the conquerors, the Iroquois ; and the Seneca tribe of that nation thereafter planted many colonies there. As early as 1724, the Monsey or Wolf tribe of the Delawares, who had previ- ously dwelt in the north-eastern part of Pennsylvania, but had been crowded out by the encroachments of the whites, were allowed by the Iroquois to settle along the Allegany. Between the years 1724 and 1728, by their per- mission, the Shawnees, a restless and warlike people, also located along the lower Allegany and upper Ohio.
When the first white man reached those wild regions, numerous Indian villages were found along the Allegany river and its tributaries. At Kittan- ningwas an old Indian town called Cattanyan, which, in September, 1756, at day break, was surprised by Col. John Armstrong, and burned. The Dela- ware Indians who occupied it, made a desperate resistance, and thirty or forty of their number were slain, including their resolute chief, Capt. Jacobs. Hugh Mercer, who became afterwards a distinguished American general, and who fell at the battle of Princeton, accompanied Col. Armstrong on this expedition.
At the mouth of the Mahoning was another Indian village. Where Franklin is situated, at the mouth of French creek, was the Indian town of Venango. It was here that the French built a fort which they called Machault; and where afterwards Washington, when on his journey to La Boeuf, had the interview with the celebrated Frenchman, Capt. Joncaire. Near the mouth of the Tionesta were three Monsey villages, called Gosh- gosh-unk [Cuscusing], where, in 1767, Rev. David Zeisberger, a Moravian missionary, commenced preaching the gospel to the Indians. He and his coadjutor, Br. Gotlob Senseman, daily preached to their wild hearers, who came in great numbers to listen, with faces painted black and vermillion, and heads decorated with fox tails and feathers. Zeisberger afterwards retired fifteen miles further up the river, to a place called Lawanakana, near where Hickory town in Venango county now stands. Here he gathered around him a little settlement, and built a chapel, and placed in it a bell, the first ever heard in Venango county, and for two years prosecuted his pious efforts.
INDIAN OCCUPATION. 3 I
Near Irvinton, in Warren county, at the mouth of the Broken Straw,* was the Indian village of Buckaloons. About five miles above Kinjua,+ extending several miles along the Allegany river, was a large Seneca town, called Yah-roon-wa-go. Near where once was the centre of this town, Cornplanter made his residence.
Mrs. Mary Jemison, before her faculties were impaired, imparted much information to the white men respecting the Indians and some of their settle- ments in Western New York. She was known by the early settlers as the "White Woman." She was captured by the Indians in her youth during the French and Indian wars, and lived with them the remainder of her days. She died in Buffalo, September 19th, 1833, at a very advanced age, much esteemed for her goodness and intelligence, by both whites and Indians. She was so kindly treated by the Indians after her captivity, that she adopted their customs, and married an Indian husband. In 1759, with her little son on her back and with her three adopted Indian brothers, she journeyed through the wilderness from Ohio to Little Beardstown, on the Genesee. In her account of their journey, she says :
" When we arrived at the mouth of French creek, we hunted two days, and thence came on to Connewango creek, where we staid eight or ten days, in consequence of our horses having left us and strayed into the woods. The horses, however, were found, and we again prepared to resume our journey. During our stay at that place, the rain fell fast, and had raised the creek to such a height, that it was seemingly impossible for us to cross it. A number of times we ventured in, but were compelled to return, barely escaping with our lives. At length we succeeded in swimming our horses, and reached the opposite shore, though I and my little boy but just escaped from being drowned. From Sandusky the path we traveled was crooked and obscure, but was tolerably well understood by my oldest brother, who had traveled it a number of times Avhen going and returning from the Cherokee wars. The fall by this time was considerably advanced, and the rains, attended with cold winds, continued daily to increase the difficulties of traveling. From Connewango we came to a place called by the Indians Che-na-shun-ga-tan, on the Allegany river, at the mouth of what is now called Cold Spring creek in the town of Napoli [now Cold Spring], Cattaraugus county, and from that to Twa-wan-ne-gvvan, or Tu-ne-un-gwan, [which means an eddy not strong], where the early frosts had destroyed the corn, so that the Indians were in danger of starving for want of bread. Having rested ourselves two days at that place, we came to Caneadea."
The Indian village of Tu-ne-un-gwan mentioned by Mrs. Jemison, was situated 18 miles further up the river than Che-na-shun-ga-tan in the town of Carrollton, Cattaraugus county. The Senecas also settled, at an early day, near the mouth of the Cattaraugus creek.
At the close of the last century, there were along the Allegarty and French
* Its Indian name was Hosh-e-nuk-vva-gunk, signifying the place where much broken straw and other drift stuff are accumulated together. — Alden's Missions, 156. t Signifying, in the Indian tongue, the place of many fishes.
32 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
creek, scattered through north-western Pennsylvania and south-western New York, other Indian towns ; but none were then known to have certainly existed in Chautauqua county. The evidences remained, however, at the first settlement of the county, of its having not long previously been occu- pied at various points by Indians. In 1795, when Col. James McMahan passed through this county, upon the Judge Prendergast tract on Conne- wango creek, in the town of Kiantone, there was an Indian camping ground. There were also to be seen, at the first settlement of the county, near the mouth of the Kianto'ne, the forms of corn hills, upon lands that appeared to have once been cleared, and had since grown up to small shrub- bery of thorns and red plum.*
In November, 1805, when William Bemus first came to the town of Ellery, at, Bemus Point, unmistakable evidences remained, that an Indian settle- ment had formerly existed tliere. Where the cemetery is situated, were the decayed remains and traces of some Indian dwellings, and the evidences that a large tract of land in the vicinity had formerly been improved. On Bemus creek were two clearings, each about ten acres in extent, a quarter of a mile apart. Where these improvements were, wild plum trees grew ; and there were the remains of brush inclosures, which Wm. Bemus had repaired, enabling him to secure a crop of grass the first years of his settle- ment there. Corn hills also were visible, and even potatoes of the lady finger variety, that had been perpetuated from year to year were there still growing ; some of which were gathered and planted by Wm. Bemus. Be- low Bemus', at Griffith's Point, were similar signs of Indian occupation. f
After the close of the Revolutionary war, that numerous portion or clan of the Seneca nation residing along the Allegany and its tributaries, were under the control of the very able and just war chief Cornplanter, sometimes called John O'Beel. The domain of this branch of the Senecas' property included Chautauqua county; and the rude improvements found here were the results, probably, of the occupation by these Indians, who undoubtedly, at some time during the last century, had at least temporary homes within the county. This clan were often referred to as the Seneca- Abeel; and in a map published by Reading Howell, 1792, the country of the upper waters of the Connewango, and of Chautauqua lake, is designated'as " O'Beel's Cayentona." This map is among the Pennsylvania Historical Collections. In James Ross Snowden's Historical Sketch of Cornplanter, prepared for the occasion of the Cornplanter monument, is the following:
"A solitary traveler, after the close of the Revolutionary war, in 1783, wandering near the shores of Chautauqua lake, found himself benighted; and ignorant of the path which should lead him to his place of destination, he feared he would be compelled to pass the night in the forest, and without shelter. But when the darkness of the night gathered around him, he saw the light of a distant fire in the woods, to which he bent his steps. Then he
* Judge E. T. Foote. Warren's Histoiy of Chautauqua County, t J. L. Bugbee. See also his sketch of Wm. Bemus.
INDIAN OCCUPATION. 33
found an Indian wigAvam, the habitation of a chief with his family. He was kindly received and hospitably entertained. After a supper of corn and venison, the traveler returned thanks to God, whose kind Providence had directed his way, and preserved him in the wilderness. He slept comfort- ably on the ample bear skins provided by his host.
'• In the morning, the Indian invited the traveler to sit beside him on a large log in front of his cabin. They were seated, side by side. Presently the Indian told the traveler to move on a litde, which he did ; and, keeping by his side, again requested him to move. This was repeated several times. At length, when near the end of the log, the chief gave an energetic push, and requested his companion to move further. The traveler remon- strated, and said, 'I can go no further; if I do, I shall fall off the log.' ' That is the way' said the Indian in reply, 'you white people treat us. "When the United People, the Six Nations, owned the whole land from the lakes to the great waters, they gave to Corlaer a seat on the Hudson, and to Ouas a town and land on the Delaware. We have been driven from our lands on the Mohawk, the Genesee, the Chemung, and the Unadilla. And from our western door, we have been pushed from the Susquehanna; then over the great mountains; then beyond the Ohio, the Allegany, and Connewango; and now we are here on the borders of the great lakes, and a further push will throw me and my people off the log.' * * * The chief, in conclu- sion, with a sad and anxious countenance asked the question, ' Where are we to go?' The only response that was made, was the sighing of the wind through the leaves of the forest; the traveler was silent."
The traveler above referred to was the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, who, for many years previous to the Revolutionary war, was a missionary among the Six Nations, and whose name and services are, during and after the Revolu- tion, recorded in connection with Indian history.
The Indian villages of North-western Pennsylvania and Western New York often contained houses sufficiently large to accommodate three or four families. Adjacent to them were frequently extensive cornfields. Between these villages, or leading from them to their favorite hunting grounds and fishing places, were well trodden pathways, several of which passed through the county of Chautauqua. A broad and well worn Indian trail led from the Cattaraugus creek, through the lake towns, to the Pennsylvania line. Another commenced near to the mouth of the Cattaraugus creek, and passed over the ridge in Arkwright and Charlotte, at the point of its lowest eleva- tion ; and through Charlotte Center and Sinclairville, and southerly in the direction of the Indian towns on the Allegany river. This trail had the appearance of much use ; the roots of the trees along its margin were marred and calloused ; and at certain points it was worn deeply into the ground. It was used by the early settlers as a highway or bridle path, in going from the center to the north-eastern part of the county, and also by the Indians sub- sequently to the settlement of the county. Still another Indian path com- menced at the Indian settlement, near the mouth of the Cattaraugus creek,. and passed down the Connewango valley, through the eastern parts of the towns of Hanover, Villenova, Cherry Creek, and Ellington. This path was 3
^4 HISTORY OF CHAUTUAQUA COUNTY.
used by white men in the settlement of these towns, and by the Indians subsequently to the settlement of the county.
All the region lying west of Blue Ridge, and east of the Wabash, which included within its limits Chautauqua county, remained unexplored and almost unknown to Europeans, until nearly as late as the year 1750 ; for the outermost limits of the back setdements of the English colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania only extended as far west as the Blue Ridge. Either the French had been excluded from here by the fierce and warlike Senecas, who were their implacable foes, or their enterprise had not yet led them in this direction ; and prior to this time, the points occupied by civilized men in the West were mostly mere trading posts, and the forests were only traversed by traders and missionaries. Chautauqua county, and the adjacent regions, not being in the route of their travel, were barely known, and were untrav- ersed except by bands of Indians in their hostile excursions. The French officer La Hontan says :
"The banks of this lake [Erie] are commonly frequented by none but warriors, whether the Iroquois, the lUinese, the Oumiamies, etc.; and it is very dangerous to stop there. By this means it comes to pass, that the stags, roebucks, and turkeys run in great bodies up and down the shore, all around the lake. In former times the Errionons and the Andastogueronons lived upon the confines of the lake ; but they were extirpated by the Iroquois, as well as the other nations marked on the map."*
Events leading to the French and Indian Wars.
The boundary line ..between the French and English possessions in America had long been a cause for earnest contention. The French claimed dominion to all the country lying west of the Allegany mountains. The English also claimed the territory westward of their colonies to the Pacific Ocean. The territory of Chautauqua county was included in these disputed regions ; and as a consequence of this controversy, it was soon brought nearer to the scene of prominent military operations, and in close proximity to important lines of communication, or rough military highways leading from distant military posts in this then interminable western wilder- ness. Communications between the French posts on the Mississippi river, and the French forts and setdements in Canada, were at first maintained by the long and circuitous route of the Mississippi, Green Bay, and the Ottawa, and afterwards by Lake Michigan and the Illinois ; and at a still later period by the way of the Maumee and the Wabash. The direct and easy commu- nicadon that could be had between Canada and the Mississippi, by the way of Lake Erie and the short portage of Chautauqua lake, or over that from Presque Isle [Erie] to French creek, and the upper waters of the Ohio, seems for a long time to have been unknown to the French ; but events of an important character as affecting this part of the world, and also the history of that of the two most powerful nations of Europe, were destined soon to
* La Hontan's Voyages.
ORIGIN OF THE NAME CHAUTAUQUA. 35
introduce this region to the notice both of the French and the EngHsh. The latter, in 1722, estabUshed a trading post at Oswego, and, a httle later, built there a fort. ^The French, to enable them to command communication with the West, thereupon, in 1725, reoccupied and reconstructed Fort Niag- ara, which had been deserted for over thirty-five years, and made it a strong fortress, and which thereafter became the scene of exciting military events.
In 1749, the two rival countries proceeded still more directly to assert their rights to the territory lying west of the AUeganies. The English gov- ernment granted five hundred thousand acres of land on the Ohio to the Ohio Company, which included persons in London, Maryland and Virginia as its members, among whom were Lawrence and Augustine Washington. The objects of this company were the settlement of this territory, and to establish a trade with the Indians. The French, the same year, sent from Detroit Capt. De Celeron, with three hundred men to march east to the Allegany mountains, to take formal possession of this territory, and to warn the English traders out of the country. He performed the task, and de- posited at important points leaden plates, with the arms of France engraved. Three of these have been found, we are told ; one at Marietta, one at the mouth of the Big Kanawha, and one at the mouth of French creek. The following is a translation of the inscription upon one of these plates, which was obtained by artifice from Joncaire, the French interpreter, by the Sene- cas, and delivered to Sir William Johnson, who forwarded it to Governor Clinton :
"In the year 1749, during the reign of Louis XV., King of France, we, Celoron, commander of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis De la Galissonire, commander in chief of New France, for the restoration of tran- quillity in some villages of Indians of these districts, have buried this plate at the confluence of the Ohio and Tchadakoin, this 29th day of July, near the river Ohio, otherwise Beautiful River, as a monument of the renewal of possession which we have taken of the said river Ohio, and of all those that therein fall, and all the lands on both sides as far as the sources of the said rivers, as enjoyed or ought to be enjoyed by the preceding Kings of France, and as they therein have maintained themselves by arms, and by treaties, especially by those of Riswick, of Utrecht, and of Aix-la-Chapelle."*
Origin of the Name Chautauqua.
The name Ohio, or La Belle Riviere, was applied by the French to that portion of the Allegany, extending up from Pittsburgh as far, at least, as Franklin, as well as to the Ohio proper. It is probable that the Connewango, Chautauqua lake and outlet, and perhaps that part of the Allegany below the mouth of the Connewango to Franklin, were called by the French the Tchad- akoin, as inscribed upon this leaden plate, and that, in process of time, this appellation was retained* only by the lake. The word underwent various changes in its orthography also, until it came to be spelled Chautauqua. On a manuscript map of 1 749, made by a Jesuit in the Department de la Marine
*9 Doc. Colonial Hist, of N. Y., pp. 610-11.
36 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
in Paris, it is spelled "-Tjadakoin" and the Chautauqua creek that empties into Lake Erie in the town of Westfield, is called the Riviere Aux Pomes, or Apple river. In the translations of the letters of Du Quesne, [pronounced Dh Kane\ governor-general of Canada, to the French government in 1753, found in vol. 10 of Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, it is spelled " Chataconit." In Stephen Coffin's affidavit, sworn to before Sir William Johnson in 1754, " Chadakoinr In the French of Capt. Pouchot, in his history of the French and English war in North America, written before the American Revolution, and in the map accom- panying it, the name of the lake is spelled ''Shatacoin." On Pownell's map of 1776, and Lewis Evans' of 1755, it is written "■ Jadaxqne:' Gen. Wm. Irvine, who visited Chautauqua prior to 1788, writes it '■'■ Jadaqua." On the map made by the Holland Land Company in 1804, it is " Chataughque." After the settlement of the county, until the year 1859, it was spelled '■'Chantauqne," when, by a resolution of the Board of Supervisors, passed October nth of that year, at the suggestion of Hon. E. T. Foote, it was changed to ''Chautauqua" that its pronunciation might conform to the pro- nunciation of the word by the Indians, at the time of the first settlement of the county.*
Various significations have been attributed to the word Chautauqua. Among others, it is said to mean, " the place where one was lost," or the "place of easy death," in allusion to a tradition of the Senecas. Corn- planter, in his celebrated speech against the title of the Phelps and Gorham tract, alluding to this tradition, says : " In this case one chief has said he would ask you to put him out of pain : another who will not think of dying by the hand of his father or his brother, has said he will retire to ' Chaud- daiik-wa^ eat of the fatal root, and sleep with his fathers in peace."t
Dr. Peter Wilson, an educated Cayuga chief, communicated to O. H. Marshall, Esq., the following Seneca tradition: "A party of Senecas returning from the Ohio in the spring of the year, ascended the outlet of Chautauqua lake, passed into the lake, and while paddling through it, caught a fish of a kind with which they were not familiar, and they threw it into the bottom of their canoe. Reaching the head of the lake, they made a portage across to the Chautauqua creek, then swollen with the spring freshets. Descending the creek into Lake Erie, they found, to their astonishment, the fish still alive. They threw it into the lake, and it disappeared. In process of time the same fish appeared abundantly in the lake, having never been caught in it before. They concluded they all sprang from the Chautauqua lake progenitor, and hence they named that Lake, " G'<a;-ja-dah'-gw<s;h, com- pounded of two Seneca words Ga-]d.h, " fish," and Ga-dah'-gw«h " taken
* No one now living has been longer or more prominency identified with this county dm-ing its early years, and consequently none more familiar with its early settlers and its history, than Judge Foote ; and no one has contributed so much in time and money, or has been more solicitous to preserve the facts connected with its early history than he.
+ See Alden's Missions, p. 169. Also Morgan's League of the Iroquois.
THE PORTAGE ROAD. 37
out." In process of time the word became contracted into Jah-dah-gw^'h : the prefix Ga being dropped, as is often the case."'^
Other meanings have been assigned to the word. Chautauqua has been said to signify " foggy place," in allusion to the mist arising from the lake ; also to mean " high up," referring to the elevated situation of the lake : while it is said that Horatio Jones and Jasper Parrish, early Indian interpre- ters, well versed in the Seneca tongue, gave its meaning to be " a pack tied in the middle " or " two moccasins fastened together," from the resemblance of the lake to those objects.
The following lines and note are from the pen of Col. Wm. H. C. Hosmer,
of Avon :
" Famous in the days of yore, But the music of her tread
Briglit Ja-da-qua ! was thy shore, Made the prophet shake his head.
And the stranger treasures yet For the mark of early doom
Pebbles that thy waves have wet ; He had seen through beauty bloom.
For they catch an added glow
From a tale of long ago. " When a fragrant wreath was made,
Ere the settler's flashing steel Round her brow she clasped the braid ;
Rang the greenwood's funeral peal. When her roving eye, alas !
Or the plow-share in the vale Flowering in the summer grass,
Blotted out the red man's trail. Did the fatal plant behold,
And she plucked it from the mould ;
icrs ^^ ,, i .. .1 . Of the honeyed root she ate,
Deadly was the plant that grew . ^^^ ^^^ J^ j^^^^^^^ ^^^ j^^
Near thy sheet of glimmering blue, tti • r . i. .u- 4. ^ 11
-r, ^ ,, ■' ■ , *' 1 ^ r lying last her thirst to slake
But the mvstic leaves were known tt »u 1 •• 11
T, ' ] • . -i 1 !< rom thy wave, enchanting lake,
lo our wandering tribe alone. ■' °
Sweeter far than honeyed fruit « Then was gained the treacherous brink,
Of the wild plum was its root ; _ Stooped O-WA-NA down to drink ;
But the smallest morsel cursed Then the waters, calm before,
Those who tasted, with a thirst Waking, burst upon the shore ;
That impelled them to leap down And the maid was seen no more.
In thy cooling depth, and drown. Azure glass ! in emeralds framed,
Since that hour Ja-da-qua named,
" On thy banks, in other hours. Or 'the place of easy death,'
Sat O-WA-NA wreathing flowers, \Yhen I pant with failing breath.
And, with whortleberries sweet, I will eat the root that grows
Filled were baskets at her feet. On thy banks, and find repose
Nature to a form of grace With the loveliest of our daughters
Had allied a faultless face ; In thy blue engulfing waters."
"These lines allude to a beautiful Seneca tradition that lends an added charm to Chau- tauqua lake, in the state of New York. A young squaw is said to have eaten of a root growing on its banks, which created tormenting thirst. To slake it she stooped down to drink of its clear waters, and disappeared for ever. Hence the name of the lake Ja-DA- QUA, or the place of easy death, where one disappears and is seen no more." [See I vol. Hosmer's Poems, 225, 373.]
The Portage Road.
The Marquis Du Quesne, having been appointed governor-general of Canada, arrived there in 1752. The measures taken by him in behalf of
* Dr. Wilson (now deceased) is regarded as good authority upon this subject. Of him Mr. Marshall says : " He had a great love for the traditional annals of his people, a very critical knowledge of the Seneca language, now reduced to a written system. Besides, he enjoyed the advantage of an English education, having graduated with honor at the Gene- see Medical College, and practiced medicine with success among the Indians.
" The word ' Shatacoin,' if properly pronounced in French would give the identical word given by Dr. Wilson in the tradition."
38 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
the French to obtain possession of the disputed territory, were of a more open and decisive character than those of any officer who had preceded him. Soon after his arrival, he commenced preparations to construct the long line of frontier forts, which had been lirst suggested by La Salle, and which the French, for so many years, had in contemplation, that were to unite Canada with Louisiana, by the way of the Ohio. The first step taken towards this bold project, may be regarded as leading directly to one of the most memorable wars of modern times, known in this country as the French and Indian war ; which resulted in divesting the French of Canada, and of the greater part of their possessions in America. This war also extended, with great results, over continental Europe, and even to Asia and Africa.
The first act of Du Quesne was to open a portage road from Erie to La Boeuf, on French creek; and also the same season to open another road from the mouth of the Chautauqua creek, near Barcelona, to the head of Chautauqua lake, at Mayville; and thus open communication between Lake Erie and the head-waters of the Ohio. Du Quesne, in the fall of 1752, rendered an account of the arrangements that he had made, in a letter to the French Minister of the Marine and Colonies, in Paris, in which he stated that he would begin his posts at a point near Barcelona in this county, and at the mouth of the Chautauqua creek, Avhich he called Chat-a-co-nit. It is evident from this correspondence, that Du Quesne fully believed, from the information that he had, that the carrying place between this point and the head of Chautauqua lake, was the shortest and most practicable that could be found between the waters of the la-kes and the Ohio, and that the carrying place between Erie and La Boeuf was discovered afterwards. The import- ance that Du Quesne attached to the selection of the best carrying place between these waters, is evident from the language used by him in his communications to the French government.
Du Quesne, during the winter, completed his preparations, which were hastened by false reports received from Joncaire, that the English had actually settled upon French creek, and at the junction of the Connewango with the Allegany, where Warren is now situated ; which the French and Indians then called Chinengue. He in the early spring dispatched, from Montreal, an advance force of two hundred and fifty men, under Monsieur Barbeer, for Chautauqua, with orders to fell and prepare timber for the build- ing of a fort there.* Barbeer and his command pursued their winter march over land and ice to Fort Niagara, pausing on their way to refresh them- selves at Cadaraqua fort and at Toronto. They remained at Fort Niagara
*The following account of the operations of the French during the spring and summer of 1753, we have mainly from an affidavit made before Sir William Johnson by Stephen Coften, who was taken prisoner by the French and Indians in 1747, and detained in Lower Canada until January, 1752, when he was allowed to join the command of Barbeer in this expedition to the Ohio river. On the return of the French forces in the fall of that year, the troops became fatigued from rowing all night upon Lake Ontario, and were ordered to put ashore within a mile of the mouth of the Oswego river for breakfast, when Coffen and a Frenchman escaped to the English fort of Oswego.
THE PORTAGE ROAD. 39
until the warmth of the early spring had sufficiently removed the ice from Lake Erie, and then pursued their way by water along the shore of the lake, arriving at the mouth of the Chautauqua creek in the month of Ajml, 1753.
What progress Barbeer made in complying with the instructions given him by Du Quesne, to fell and prepare timber for a fort there, we are not in- formed. Sieiir Marin, to whom was assigned the chief command of all the forces of France, operating in the country of the Ohio, having arrived with a larger force, consisting of five hundred soldiers and twenty Indians, put a stop to the building of the fort, as he did not like the situation, believing the river of Chadekoins, as the outlet of Chautauqua lake was called, too shallow to carry craft with provisions to the Ohio river. An altercation ensued ; Barbeer insisting either upon building the fort according to his in- structions, or that Marin should give him a writing that would justify him in the eyes of the governor. Marin finally complied with Barbeer's demand, and gave him such a writing, and then dispatched Chevalier Le Mercier, a captain of artillery, and an able officer, to whom was assigned the duties of engineer for the expedition, to explore the shore for a better point of depart- ure from the lake. After an absence of three days, Le Mercier returned to Chautauqua, and reported that about fifteen leagues to the south-west he had discovered a harbor where boats could enter with perfect safety, and that it was a most favorable point for their purpose.
The French immediately repaired thither, and upon their arrival found twenty Indians fishing in the lake, who fled on their approach. Here the French built a fort one hundred and twenty feet square, and fifteen feet high, of chestnut logs. It had a gate on the north and south sides, but no port holes. The French called it Fort Presque Isle. It stood where now is situated the city of Erie, Pennsylvania. Upon the completion of this fort, Marin left there Captain Derpontcy, with one hundred men to garrison it, and immediately cut a wagon road to the southward, through a fine level country, twenty-one miles to a point on the river La Boeuf, the present site of Waterford, Erie county. Pa. Faint traces of this wagon road are still visible not far from the city of Erie. They built at Waterford, of wood, a tri- angular stockaded fort, within which two log houses were erected. While building this fort, Marin sent Monsieur Bite with fifty men to the Allegany river, where French creek empties into it, and Marin built ninety boats or batteaux, to carry down the baggage and provisions. Bite returned and reported the situation good, but the river too low at that time for boats ; and also that the Indians had forbid the building of the fort. When the fort Aux Boeufs was completed, Marin ordered all his forces to return to Canada, to remain there through the winter, excepting three hundred men, which were retained to garrison the two forts he had built, and to prepare materials for the building of other forts in the next spring. He also sent Coeur, an officer and interpreter, to s!ay during the winter among the Indians on the Ohio, and to persuade them not only to permit the building of forts, but to join the French against the English.
40 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
About eight days before the French took their departure from Presque Isle, ChevaHer Le Crake arrived express from Canada, in a birch canoe, propelled by ten men, with orders from Du Quesne to make all preparations to build, the succeeding spring, two forts in Chautauqua ; one at Lake Erie, and one at the end of the carrying place on Chautauqua lake. On the 28th of October, about four hundred and forty French, under Captain Deneman, set out from Presque Isle for Canada, in twenty-two batteaux ; followed in a few days by seven hundred and sixty men, being all the remainder of the French that were not left to garrison the forts they had built in Pennsylvania. On the 30th of October, 1753, they arrived at Chautauqua, probably at or near Barcelona. Here, within this county, this army remained encamped for four days, during which time two hundred of their number, under Monsieur Pean, cut the wagon road over the carrying place, from Lake Erie to Chautauqua lake.*
The French pronounced themselves satisfied with this route, and on the 3d of November set out for Canada, arriving at Niagara on the 6th. f
Besides the two hundred and fifty men composing the advance force under Barbeer, and the five hundred that soon afterwards came up under Marin, there came afterwards, during the season, other bodies of troops from Can- ada, with stores ; making the whole number of French engaged in this expedition, 1,500 men. Nine pieces of artillery were brought with them, all of which were left in Fort Le Boeuf, where Marin commanded. These constitute the operations of the French in the year 1753, in this remote wilderness ; and they were deemed of great importance, even in Paris, as sufficiently appears in the correspondence between the French officials respecting them. To furnish an army of 1,500 men with supplies and munitions, and send them from Montreal, itself but a fortress in the depths of the forest, still farther to the west, through an untravfersed wilderness, over inland seas, a distance of 500 miles, to these wild and almost unknown regions, was an enterprise then regarded as of no small magnitude, even by a government as powerful as France.
The difficulties experienced by the French in pushing forward this expe- dition, as well as many other interesting particulars respecting it, are set
* " Hugues Pean was a native of Canada ; his father had been adjutant, or town major of Quebec ; a situation to which the son succeeded, on the arrival of IM. de Jonquire. His wife was young, spiritual, mild, and obliging, and her conversation amusing ; she succeeded in obtaining considerable influence over the intendant M. Bigot, who went regularly to spend his evenings with her. She became at length the channel through which the public patronage flowed. Pean in a short time saw himself worth fifty thousand crowns. Bigot, the intendant, requiring a large supply of wheat, gave Pean the contract, and even advanced him money from the treasury, with which the wheat was bought. The intendant next issued an ordinance, fixing the price of wheat much higher than Pean purchased it. The latter delivered it to the government, at the price fixed by the ordinance, whereby he real- ized immense profit, obtained a seigniory, and becaitie very weaXihy. '^^Collections 0/ Quebef Literary and Historical Society, 1S38, page 68. "He was afterwards created a Knight of St. Louis." — Sfnith's Canada, I., page 221,
t JO Colonial Hist, of N. Y.
THE PORTAGE ROAD. 4I
forth in a letter bearing date August 20, 1753, from Du Quesne to iM. de Rouille, the French Minister of Marine and Colonies, in which he says :*
" My Lord :
" I have the honor to inform you that I have been obliged to alter the arrangement I had made, whereof I rendered you an account last fall.
" You will see, my Lord, by the extract of the journal hereto annexed, the reasons which compelled me to reduce to almost one half, the vanguard that I informed you consisted of 400 men, and those that determined me to prefer landing the troops at the harbor of Presque Isle on Lake Erie, which I very fortunately discovered, instead of Chataconit, where, I informed you, I would begin my posts.
" This discovery is so much more propitious, as it is a harbor which the largest barks can enter loaded, and be in perfect safety. I am informed that the beach, the soil, and the resources of all sorts, were the same as repre- sented to me.
" The plan I send you of this place is only a rough sketch until it is corrected. I have given orders that this be proceeded with.
"The letter I received on the 12th of January last from M. de Joncaire, has obliged me to force to obtain provisions from the farmers, to enable me to oppose the projects of the English, who, he advised me, had sent smiths to Chinenguef and the river Aux Boeuf, where they were even settled ; and that there was a terrible excitement among the Indians, who looked upon it as certain that the English would be firmly settled there in the course of this year, not imagining that my forces were capable of opposing them. This fear, which made me attempt the impossible, has had hitherto the most com- plete success. All the provisions have arrived from without, after a delay of fifteen days, and I had them transported with all imaginable diligence, into a country so full of difficulties, in consequence of the great number of voyageurs which I required to ascend the rapids; the race of which is getting scarce.
" I was not long in perceiving that this movement made a considerable impression on the Indians ; and what has thrown more consternation among them is, that I had no recourse to them ; for I contented myself with telling our domiciliated tribes, that if there were eight or ten from each village who had the curiosity to witness my operations, I would permit them to follow Sieur Marin, the commander of the detachment, whom they were well acquainted with, and in whom they have confidence. Of 200 whom I pro- posed to send forward, only 70 are sufficient for scouts and hunters.
" All the natives that came down to see me from the upper country, and who met the multitude of batteaux and canoes which were conveying the men and effects belonging to the detachment, presented themselves all trembling before me, and told me that they were aware of my power by the, swarm of men they had passed, and begged me to have pity on them, their wives, and their children. I took advantage of their terror to speak to them in a firm tone and menacing the first that would falter ; and instead of a month or five weeks that they were accustomed to remain here consuming the King's provisions, I got rid of them on the fourth day.
" It appears up to this time, that the execution of the plan of my enter-
* 10 Doc. relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y.
t Chinengue, or Shenango, is laid down in Mitchell's map at the junction of the Conne- wango and Allegany, where Warren is now situated.
42 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
prise makes so strong an impression on the natives, that all the vagabonds who had taken refuge on the Beautiful River, have returned to their village.
" I keep the five nations much embarrassed because they have not come down to Montreal, and the only step they have taken has been to send the ladies (dames) of their council to Sieur Marin to inquire of him by a belt, whether he was marching with the hatchet uplifted. He told them that he bore it aloft, in order that no person should be ignorant of the fact ; but as for the present, his orders were to use it only in case he encountered op- position to my will ; that my intention was to support and assist them in their necessities, and to drive away the evil spirits that encompassed them, and that disturbed the earth.
" I was aware that the English of Philadelphia had invited them to general council, and that they had refused to attend to it. Further, I knew from a man worthy of credit, who happened to be among these Indians when the English arrived, that they had rejected the belts which had been offered to oppose the entrance of the King's troops into the river Ohio, since they had sold it to the English. They answered that they would not meddle with my affairs, and that they would look quietly on, from their mats, persuaded as they were, that my proceedings had no other object than to give a clear sky to a country which served as a refuge for assassins who had reddened the ground with their blood.
" This nation, which possesses a superior government to all others, allowed itself to be dazzled by continued presents, and did not perceive that the English are hemming it in, so that if it do not shake off their yoke 'twill soon be enslaved. I shall lead them to make this reflection, in order to in- duce them to pull down Choneganen, which is destroying them and will be the ruin of the colony.
" Should we have had to use reprisals, I would soon have taken that post. I have already forwarded to Fort Frontenac, the artillery and everything necessary to this coup de main.
" Sieur Marin writes me on the 3d instant, that the fort at Presque Isle is entirely finished ; that the Portage road, which is six leagues in length, is also ready for carriages ; that the store which was necessary to be built half way across this Portage, is in a condition to receive the supplies, and that the second fort, which is located at the mouth of the river Aux Boeuf, will soon be completed.
" This commandant informs me, moreover, that he is having some pirogues constructed ; whilst men are actually employed in transporting his stores; and he tells me that all the Delawares, Chauonanons [Shawnees] and Senecas, on the Beautiful River, had come to meet him, and that he had so well received them, that they were very zealously assisting with their horses that they have brought along with them in making the portage.
" There has not been, up to the present time, the least impediment to the considerable movements I have caused to be made ; everything arrived at its destination with greater celerity than I anticipated; and among the prodigi- ous number of batteaux or canoes that have passed the rapids, only one has upset, drowning seven men.
" As it is impossible in a movement as vast as it was precipitous for this country, that some of the provisions should be spoiled in open craft, despite all the precautions that could be taken, I have sent on as much as was necessary to repair the loss.
THE PORTAGE ROAD. 43
" Everything announces, my Lord, the successful execution of my project, unless some unforeseen accident has occurred ; and the only anxiety I feel is, that the River Aux Boeuf portage will delay the entrance of our troops into the Beautiful River, as it is long, and there is considerable to carry, and the horses I have sent thither have arrived there exhausted by fatigue. But I hope this will be obviated by those the Indians have brought thither, and that the mildness of the climate will admit of the completion of the posts. The extreme boldness with which I have executed a project of so much importance, has caused me the liveliest inquietude ; the famine which met rae on my arrival at Quebec having reduced me, forwarding only 900 barrels of flour as the whole supply.
"From the knowledge I have acquired this winter, I would have composed my vanguard of 700 men, had I had an entrepot of provisions at Niagara, because that body of men would have assuredly advanced to the portage, which I was desirous of occupying ; having to fear some opposition on the part of the Indians of the Beautiful River at the instigation of the English, my plan having been discovered, and bruited abroad since M. de la Jonquire's death, in consequence of the explorations that I caused to be made by some bark canoes, notwithstanding the color I wished to give these movements.
"I leave you to judge, my Lord, the trouble of mind I felt at the reduc- tion of this vanguard to 250 men, which I was obliged to send like what is called in the army a forlorn hope, when dispatched to explore a work. On the other hand, I should proceed at a snail's pace could I continue my operations only with the assistance derived from the sea, the inconveniences of which I understood. In fine, my Lord, if there be any merit in doing anything contrary to the prudence of a person of my age, who has not the reputation of being devoid of that virtue, the enterprise in question would be entitled to very great credit ; but necessity having constrained me to it, I do not adopt it, and attribute its success to singular good fortune which I would not for all the world attempt again.
"The discovery I have made of the harbor of Presque Isle, which is regarded as the finest spot in Nature, has determined me to send a royal assistant pilot to search around the Niagara rapids for some place where a bark could remain to take in its load. Nothing would be of greater advan- tage in the saving of transport, and the security of the property of the new posts and of Detroit ; but it is necessary to find a good bottom, so that the anchors may hold ; for it could safely winter at Presque Isle, where it would be as it were in a box. I impatiently await the return of this pilot, and I would be much flattered could I be able to announce to you in my latest dispatches, that I have ordered the construction of this vessel.
" I must not leave you ignorant, my Lord, how much I am pleased with Sieur Marin, the commander of the detachment, and Major Pean. The former, who has an experienced capacity, manages the Indians as he pleases; and he has, at his age, the same zeal and activity as any young ofiicer that may enter the service. The second is endowed with all the talent imaginable for detail and resources, and knows no other occupation than that of accom- pUshing the object he is intrusted with. He alone had charge of dispatch- ing all the canoes and batteaux, and acquitted himself of that duty with great order. Chevalier Le Mercier, to whom I assigned the duties of engi- neer, and who is also intrusted with the distribution of the provisions, is an oflicer possessing the rarest talent. Sieur Marin expresses himself to rae in
44 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
the highest terms of all those who are under his orders, and who vie with each other in diligence.
" I am, with the most profound respect, my Lord,
" Your most humble and most obedient servant,
"DU QUESNE.^'
This Portage road was cut by the French from Lake Erie to Chautauqua lake more than twenty years before the battle of Lexington, and was the first work performed by civilized hands within the limits of Chautauqua county, of which we are informed. It was known by the early settlers of the county, as the Old Portage or French road, and was one of the first highways of the county over which, in early days, much merchandise, including large amounts of salt from Onondaga county, were annually transported to Pittsburgh, and places on the river below.
The Portage road commenced on the west bank of Chautauqua creek, a little distance from its mouth, in the town of Westfield. Thence it passed up, on the west side of the creek, crossing the present Erie road at the Old McHenry tavern, where the historical monument stands, to a point above the woolen factory, about a mile from Westfield. Here the road crossed the creek ; still further on it crossed the present road leading from Mayville to Westfield, and continued most of the distance for the remainder of the way, on the east side of the present road, and terminated at the foot of Main street in Mayville. The original track and remains of the old log bridges were plainly to be seen as late as the year 1817 ; and even traces of this road remain to this day. Judge William Peacock, of Mayville, passed over this Portage road as early as July, 1800. He followed it from the mouth of Chautauqua creek, three miles up its west bank, and thence over the hills to Chautauqua lake. The road then had the appearance of having been used in former times. The underbrush had been cut out ; and where this road crossed the Chautauqua creek, about three miles from its mouth, the banks upon each side had been dug away, to admit a passage across the stream. Towards Mayville, and near the summit of the hills, at a low wet place, a causeway had been constructed of logs. Over this point the present high- way from Mayville to Westfield now passes. At the foot of Main street in Mayville, where the Portage terminated, was a circular piece of mason work of stone laid in sand and mortar, three or four feet high, and three or four feet in diameter. It was constructed, as Judge Peacock conjectured, for the purpose of cooking food. A piece of mason work, precisely like this in every respect, he saw standing at the other end of the Portage, at the mouth of the Chautauqua creek, opposite Barcelona. This mason work was seen as late as 1802 by William Bell, who, for over seventy years, resided in Westfield.*
The operations of the French in the West, during the spring and summer of 1753, were watched with interest and indignation by the English. Capt. Stodart wrote a letter to Col. William Johnson on the 1 5th of May, 1 753, from
* See the Extract from Sir William Johnson's Journal, />os(.
THE FRENCH WAR. 45
Oswego, informing him that over thirty French canoes, carrying a part of the French army, had passed them the day before for the Ohio ; also that he was informed by a Frenchman, who was on his way to Cajocka [probably Chau- tauqua], that the French under Marin were about to build forts at places convenient for them ; " that one fort was to be built at Ka-sa-no-tia-yo-go " [a carrying place], and another at Diontarogo."'^ A copy of this letter was forwarded by Col. Johnson to Governor Clinton.
Washington's Journey to French Creek. When information reached Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, of these proceedings by the French, he determined to ascertain their purpose, and to induce them to abandon their claim upon the valley of the Ohio. He ac- cordingly dispatched George Washington, then but twenty-two years of age, who set out from Williamsburgh, in Virginia, on the 30th day of October, 1753, and arrived at the place where Pittsburgh now stands, about three weeks afterwards. He then proceeded to Venango, where he arrived on the 4th of December, and had an interview with the celebrated Capt. Joncaire, but obtained no satisfaction. From Venango he pushed on up the French creek, to the post the French had established at Le Boeuf, now Waterford, where he arrived the nth of December, 1753. The fort he found situated on the island on the west fork of French creek. It consisted of four houses, forming a square, defended by bastions made of palisades twelve feet high, pierced for cannon and small arms. Within the bastions were a guard-house and other buildings. Outside were stables, a smith forge, and a log house for soldiers. Washington found that the French were preparing at this place many pine boats and bark canoes to be ready in the spring, to descend and destroy the English posts on the Ohio river. Here Washington, over one hundred and twenty years ago, spent five anxious days, within but fourteen miles from the town of French Creek, in Chautauqua county, negotiating with the French commandant, St. Pierre. Having finished his business with the French, Washington set out on the i6th of December to return. His long journey through the wilderness was beset by many difficulties and dan- gers. French creek and the Allegany river were swollen and full of floating ice.; the snows were deep, and the cold intense. He arrived at Williams- burgh, January i6th, 1754; having performed a toilsome and perilous jour- ney of eight hundred miles, in two and one half months.
The French War.
Immediately after Washington's return, the Ohio Company sent Captain Trent and a small body of men, to the junction of the Allegany with the Monongahela, where Pittsburgh is now situated. He arrived there in Feb- ruary, 1754, and commenced laying the foundations of a fort, which was completed prior to April 17th, 1754. This was the first occupation of the territory where Pittsburgh now stands. Against this post the French imme-
* 7 Doc. relating to the Col. Hist, of N, Y., 779.
46 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
diately dispatched a formidable expedition, which was in fact the first war- like demonstration made in the French war. Monsieur Contrecoeur, then the commander in chief of 'the French on the Beautiful River, at the head of I, GOO French and Indians, with i8 pieces of cannon, in 60 batteaux and 200 canoes, descended the Allegany, and arrived at Pittsburgh on the i6th of April, 1754, and summoned the English commandant Ward to surrender. He having but forty men to defend his unfinished stockade, was obliged to comply with the demand.* This affair is memorable, from the fact that it was the first blow struck in the great wars that followed in Europe and America.
The Portage road from Barcelona to Mayville, it has been seen, was cut late in the preceding fall, with a distinct view to its future use. This expe- dition was the first movement made by the French in the spring following ; and it is probable, as but few French remained at Le Boeuf and Presque Isle during the winter, that a large part of this force had to be drawn that season from Canada ; and that a portion of it may have passed over Chau- tauqua lake. This portage may have been used by the French and Indians in other warlike expeditions. Pouchot, the officer who commanded the French at Fort Niagara when it surrendered to Sir William Johnson, wrote a history of the French and Indian war in North America, in which he says : " The river of Chatacoin is the first that communicates from Lake Erie to the Ohio ; and it was by this that they [the FrencJi\ went in early times zvhen they made a journey to that part. The navigation is always made in a canoe, on account of the small amount of water in this river. It is only, in fact, when there is a freshet, that they can pass, and then with difficulty, which makes them prefer the navigation of the river Aux Boeuf, of which the entrepot is the fort of Presque Isle."+
Sir William Johnson, in 1761, journeyed to Detroit by the command of Gen. Amherst, to establish a treaty with the Ottawa confederacy, to regulate the trade at the several posts in the Indian country. On his return, he coasted along the south shore of Lake Erie. In his journal of this journey is the following reference to this portage, with other interesting particulars :
"Wednesday, October ist [1761], embarked [at Presque Isle], at 7 o'clock, with the wind strong ahead — continued so all the day, notwithstanding it improved all day, and got to Jadaghque creek and carryijig place, which is a fine harbor and encampment. It is very dangerous from Presque Isle here, being a prodigious steep, rocky bank all the way, except two or three creeks and small beaches, where are very beautiful streams of w^ater or springs which tumble down the rocks. We came about forty miles this day. The fire was burning where Captain Cochran [the officer who commanded at Presc^ue Isle] I suppose encamped last night. Here the French had a baking place, and here they had meetings, and assembled the Indians ta hen first going to Ohio, and
*Craig's Hist, of Pittsburgh, 23. 6 Col. Doc. Hist, of New York, 840. 2 Doc. Hist, of New York.
+ Pouchot Frencli and English Wars in North America, Vol. H., 160 (Hough's trans- lation).
THE FRENCH WAR, 47
bought this place of them. Toonadawanusky, the river we stopped yesterday at, is so called.
" Friday, 2d. A very stormy morning, wind not fair ; however, sent off my two baggage boats, and ordered them to stop about thirty miles off in a river [probably Cattaraugus creek]. The Seneca Indian tells me we may get this day to the end of the lake. I embarked at eight o'clock with all the rest, and got about thirty miles, when a very great storm of wind and rain arose, and obliged us to put into a little creek [probably Eighteen Mile creek], between the high rocky banks. The wind turned north-west, and it rained very hard. We passed the Mohawks in a bay about four miles from here. Some of our boats are put into other places as well as they can. My bedding is on board the birch canoe of mine, with the Indian somewhere ahead. The lake turns very greatly to the north-east, and looks like low land. From Presque Isle here is all high land, except a very few spots where boats may land. In the evening, sent Oneida to the Mohawk encampment, to learn what news here."*
Although the French may have very early used this route by Chautauqua lake to some extent, when passing from Lake Erie to the Allegany and Ohio, it is clear that the route by Presque Isle and French creek was finally adopted and principally used by them. The French were masters in wood craft, and wonderfully familiar with the geography of this remote wilderness ; yet it is not strange that they should be in doubt as to which was the better route, for it would be difficult for us, even at this day, familiar as we are with the premises, to determine which would have been the better communication for them.
In 1754, and soon after the fall of Pittsburgh, Washington being in com- mand of a force of English colonists, fought with the French, in the forests of Pennsylvania, his two first battles ; in one of which he defeated Mon- sieur Jummonville, and in the other [the batde of Fort Necessity], the French having been reinforced from Canada, he himself was defeated. July 9th, 1755, Braddock's large and well disciplined army was defeated by a small force of Indians and a little band of gallant Frenchmen, who had the year before passed along this county. The train of artillery taken from Braddock was transported back, and used in August of the succeeding year, by Mont- calm, in the siege of Oswego. Fort Du Quesne was taken from the French on the 25th of November, 1758, by an army of about 6,000 men under Gen. Forbes ; the French in possession there, upon their approach, having fled, some up the Allegany and some down the Ohio. The English under Prideaux, in July of the succeeding year, invested Fort Niagara. Prideaux having been killed, the siege was continued by the English under Sir William Johnson. The Indians from the West, and from along the Allegany, were collected together by the French. They, with French soldiers from the posts of Venango and Presque Isle, formed a large force. This army was conducted along Lake Erie to its outlet, led by D'Aubry, a French officer, for the purpose of reinforcing Niagara. They were met by the English in
* Stone's Life and Times of Sir William Johnson.
48 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
the town of Lewiston, in this state, on the 24th of July, 1759, where a bloody battle was fought, and the French and Indians defeated, and 500 of their number slain. Niagara immediately after surrendered to the English. Gen. Charles Lee, who became afterwards one of the most distinguished officers of the American Revolution, was present at the siege of Niagara, and after its surrender passed by Chautauqua county, on a military errand down the Allegany, to Fort Du Quesne.* Quebec having been taken by the English under Wolf, the French, in November, 1760, surrendered all their posts in this part of the continent to the crown of England ; and the French, who had for so many years known these western regions, thereafter ceased to be seen in company with their red allies along the borders of this county.
The first military expedition of the English over Lake Erie, was made immediately after the surrender, by the French, of their possessions in Amer- ica. It was dispatched to take possession of Detroit, iSIichillimackinack, and other French posts that had been surrendered. ISIajor Rogers, long celebrated for his skill in border war, led the expedition. He embarked in November, 1760, at the foot of Lake Erie, with 200 rangers in fifteen whale boats, and coasted along the southern shore of the lake. On arriving at Erie Rogers set out for Pittsburgh. He descended French creek and the Allegany river in a canoe. Having obtained reinforcements, he proceeded on his way to Detroit, which was surrendered to him immediately on his arrival.t
PoNTiAc's War. The English having become possessed of the chain of forts extending from Lake Erie to the Monongahela, now occupied them as outposts. They had, however, never purchased the lands upon which they stood of the Indi- ans. Pontiac, an Ottawa chief of great abilities, resolved to rescue them and all the forts in the West, from English possession. He eftected a union of the Western tribes for that purpose. The posts were all to be attacked in a single day, their garrisons massacred, and also all the people of the bor- der settlements. So well planned was the attack, that nine English posts in the West were surprised and captured in a single day, in the month of May, 1763. Most of the officers and men of these garrisons were tomahawked and scalped. Among the posts taken were Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, and Venango. Various accounts have been given of the capture of Presque Isle ; one, that it was taken through an ingenious stratagem of the Indians ; and another, that it was taken after a vigorous assault and firm defense. Nearly all the accounts agree that the garrison was destroyed. A few only of the garrison at Le Boeuf escaped, through an underground passage having its outlet in the swamp adjoining Le Boeuf lake. Only one, it is said, of those who escaped survived to reach a civilized settlement. :|; The scattered
* Irving's ^Vashington, 377, 378.
t See Pontiac, or the Siege of Detroit ; also Rogers' Journal.
:;:Penn. Hist. Coll.
PONTIAC'S WAR. 49
settlers in Western Pennsylvania were either murdered or obliged to flee to the nearest forts. Pontiac, with great energy, led the attack upon Detroit in person, and for more than a )^ear it was besieged, during which time the garrison greatly suftered.
During the siege of Detroit, the Indians prosecuted the war at other points. There is no doubt that the Seneca Indians cooperated with Pontiac. They, on the 14th of September, 1763, attacked a party of over fifty Eng- lish soldiers at Devil's Hole, near Niagara Falls, and all were killed, except- ing two or three. They also, on the 19th of October of the same year, somewhere near the foot of Lake Erie, attacked 160 English soldiers under Major Wilkins, on their way to relieve Detroit, who were there in their boats. A battle ensued, in which nearly thirty English were killed and wounded. Other calamities befel Major Wilkins. A storm overtook him on Lake Erie 3 his boats were wrecked; his ammunition was lost; and seventy of his men perished.
On the loth of August, 1764, Gen. Bradstreet, at the head of 3,000 men, departed from Fort Erie for Detroit. He passed along the southern shore of Lake Erie. At Sandusky and along the Maumee he burned the Indian cornfields and villages ; and when he arrived at Detroit, raised the siege, and compelled the Indians to lay down their arms. Israel Putnam accompanied Bradstreet as colonel of a Connecticut regiment, and passed with him along the shore of this county. On the i8th of October, Gen. Bradstreet, with 1,100 men and several cannon, set out for Fort* Niagara. No detailed account of his return march has been preserved. A portion of his batteaux are supposed to have been wrecked west of Cleveland. Muskets, swords, wrecks of boats and other relics have been found for several miles along the coast ; a mound also, filled with human skeletons, supposed to have been of his party. As there remained an insufficient number of boats to carry his men, the volunteers are said to have marched by land along the south shore of the lake, passing Chautauqua county, sustaining themselves on their way by hunting. They did not arrive at Fort Niagara until winter, and came very "near perishing by hunger on the way.''
Pontiac's war was the last great attempt made by the Indians to redeem this country from the dominion of the white man ; and at its close, compara- tive peace for many years prevailed ; and no event of importance occurred in these regions until the Revolutionary war.
In November, \-]6?>, a. boundary line was established between the whites and Indians, at a treaty held at Fort Stanwix, on the Mohawk river. This line ascended the Ohio and Allegany rivers to Kittanning ; it then extended in an easterly direction to the Susquehanna; thence northerly to Lake Ontario. North-westerly of this line were the lands of the Indians, which included Chautauqua county. South-east of this line was the territory of the whites. Chautoauqua lake was delineated upon the map executed at the
* Am. Hist. Record, Vol. III., p. 155. Whittlesey's Hist. Account of Ohio, p. 20. 4
50 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
time of this treaty. Its outlet into the Allegany river was spelled " Cana- wagan;" and one of the streams from our county emptying into Lake Erie was spelled " Jadahque."'"'"
Col. Broadhead's Expedition.
At the breaking out of the Revolution, the limits of settlement and civili- zation had extended somewhat nearer to Chautauqua county ; but no event of great importance affecting these regions transpired until near the close of the war. Long prior to 1779, the hostile Indians and tories had desolated the frontier settlements of New York and Pennsylvania ; to punish them,- Washington planned two expeditions. One was to march by the north branch of the Susquehanna, against the Indian villages of the Six Nations in New York; the other was, at the same time, to proceed up the Allegany, under the command of Col. Daniel Broadhead, a gallant and enterprising officer, who then commanded at Pittsburgh, and to destroy the villages of the Seneca and Munsey Indians, who dwelt along that river and its tributaries, and afterwards to unite with the army of Gen. Sullivan in a combined attack upon Fort Niagara. On account of the difficulty of providing Col. Broad- head with supplies in time, and the want of satisfactory information concern- ing the country along the Allegany, the idea of the two expeditions cooper- rating with each other was abandoned by Gen. Washington.+ Col. Broadhead, however, on the nth of August, 1779, at the head of 605 militia and volunteers, and with cfne month's provisions, set out from Pittsburgh, and advanced up the Allegany river to the mouth of the Mahoning. Here their provisions were transferred from the boats to pack-horses; and the army proceeded on to Brady's Bend, in Clarion county, Pennsylvania. Here an advanced party of Col. Broadhead's force, consisting of fifteen white men and eight Delaware Indians, under the command of Lieut. Harding, fell in with thirty or forty Indian warriors coming down the river in seven canoes. The Indians landed and stripped off their shirts ; a sharp contest ensued ; the Indians were defeated, and five of their number were killed and several wounded ; and all their canoes and contents fell into the hands of Col. Broadhead. Lieut. Harding had three men wounded, including one of the Delaware Indians.
Capt. Samuel Brady, who was in this encounter, and whose name has been given to this locality, was born at Shippensburgh, Penn., 1758. He was at the siege of Boston, and a lieutenant at the massacre of Paoli. Having lost both his father and brother by the hands of Indians, he took an oath of vengeance against the race. Having been ordered to Fort Pitt with the rest of his regiment under General Broadhead, it gave him an oppor- tunity to fulfill his vow. He was generally placed in command of scouting parties sent into the Indian country from Fort Pitt ; and being an athletic, active and courageous man, familiar with the woods and Indian warfare, he
* Doc. Hist. N. v., pp. 587-91.
t Letter from Washington to Col. Broadhead, April 21, 1779.
BRITISH AND INDIAN EXPEDITION. 5 1
became the hero of many bold exploits in the north-east part of the valley of the Ohio, and a serious trouble to his Indian foes in those parts. An account of his daring adventures and hair-breadth escapes would fill a book. They gave his name permanently to many localities in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Jonathan Zane was also in this engagement, and was wounded. He was a celebrated scout and great hunter, and piloted many expeditions against the Indians.''''
Colonel Broadhead's command continued to march up the river, as far as the Indian village of Buckaloons, on the flats near Irvineton, at the mouth of the Broken Straw, in Warren county. The Indians were driven from their village, and retreated to the hills in the rear. The town was destroyed, and a breastwork of trees thrown up.f A garrison of forty men was left to guard the provisions; and the remainder of the force proceeded to the Indian town of Conawago, which was found to have been deserted eighteen months before. Conawago was burnt, and the troops marched still further up the river, past Kinjua to Yohroonwago, a place about four miles below the southern boundary of the state of New York. Here they found a painted image, or war post, clothed in dog skin. The troops remained there three days, burning this and other towns in the vicinity and destroying the exten- sive cornfields that they found there. Col. Broadhead believed, from the great quantity of corn found, and from the number of new houses which were built, and being built of square and round logs and of framed timbers, that the whole Seneca and Munsey nations intended to collect there. Yoh- roonwago was situated where, some years afterwards, Cornplanter made his residence, and where an Indian village grew up, called De-o-no-sa-da-ga, meaning, in English, burned houses. According to Mrs. Jemison, Colonel Broadhead's troops ascended the Allegany as far as Clean Point, and burnt other Indian towns on French creek, including Maghinquechahocking, a village of thirty-five large houses. Col. Broadhead arrived at Fort Pitt, on his return, September 14th, 1779; having burned ten Indian villages, con- taining one hiuidrcd and sixty-five houses, having destroyed more than five hundred acres of Indian corn, and taken three thousand dollars' worth of fiurs and other plunder, and having himself lost neither man nor beast.;':
British and Indian Expedition over Chautauqua Lake in 1782. The expedition of Sullivan and Broadhead, and the destruction of the In- dian towns and cornfields, had the effect to throw the Indians upon the
* Butterfield's Hist, of Crawford's' Expedition, 128, 129.
t Sometime afterwards, Major Morrison, who became a distinguished citizen of Lexing- ton, Ky., returned to the mouth of the Broken Straw to reconnoiter, and narrowly escaped with his life. He had stooped to drink from the creek, when a rifle ball from an Indian's gun splashed the water into his face.— /'«. Hist. Collection, 653. The remains of this stockade were very plainly to be seen a few years ago. They were situate about half a mile above the crossing of the Broken Straw, on the road to Warren, on a high bluff on the Alle- gany river, and commanded an extensive view up and down the river.— Z*?-. Wni. A. Irtine.
:J: Broadhead's Rep. to T. Pickering, Sept. 16, 1799.
52 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
hands of their British employes for support. Daring the succeeding winter, want and disease followed, and swept many of them away; yet it did not put a stop to their inroads. Exasperated by their misfortunes, maurauding parties of Indians, led by Brant and Cornplanter''' and other chiefs, supported by their allies, the tories, during the remainder of the war, visited the front- ier settlenients of New York and Pennsylvania, from the Mohawk to the Wyoming Valley ; burning the houses of the settlers, killing many, and car- rying others into captivity. Fort Niagara had usually been the winter
* Gy-ant-\va-chia, the Cornplanter, who exercised his rude authority in these regions, was a celebrated Seneca warrior and chieftain, and the rival of the Indian orator Red Jacket. His sagacity, eloquence and courage, for a long time justly gave him great influ- ence with his tribe. He was born about the year 1732, at Conawaugus, on the Genesee river. His father was a white man named John O'Bail, or Abeel ; his mother was a Seneca woman. Ga-ne-odi-yo, or Handsome Lake, the Prophet, and Ta-wan-ne-ars, or Blacksnake, were his half-brothers. When about twenty-three years of age, he first appeared as a warrior with the army of French and Indians which defeated Braddock in 1755 ; and he probably afterwards participated in the principal Indian engagements during the Revolution, fighting against the colonies. He is said to have been present at Wyoming and Cherry Valley, and was with Brant at the head of his tribe in opposing Sullivan's expedition. He also afterwards led the Senecas in the invasion of the Mohawk Valley, when, it is said, he made his father, John O'Bail, a prisoner, and after marching him several miles with the usual Indian stoicism, without disclosing himself, he abruptly, and in the sententious manner of the Indian, announced his relationship, and gave O'Bail his choice, to live with him and his red followers, where he would support him at ease in his old age, or to return to his home on the Mohawk. He chose the latter, and Cornplanter sent his young men who conducted him back in safety. Cornplanter was an able man, and also honest and truthful ; he acted a most conspicuous part in the treaties and transac- tions between the Indians and the United States, subsequent to the Revolutionary war, and he saw, at its close, that the true policy of the Indian was to recognize the growing power of the United States, and bury the hatchet. He advised his tribe to this course, in opposition to the counsels of Brant and Red Jacket, and during the Indian wars that followed, he remained the true and steadfast friend of the United States. In the last war with England, when about eighty-four years old, accompanied by 200 warriors of his nation, he called upon Col. Samuel Drake, at Franklin, and offered his services to the United States, which were declined for the want of authority to muster Indians into the service. A considerable number of his tribe, however, led by his son Henry Abeel, who held a commission as major, acted during the war as scouts, and did good service to the United States. Cornplanter, in his life-time, often visited Chautauqua county ; and years before its settlement by the first white man, he thoroughly understood the geography of its lakes and streams. After the Revolution he resided principally at Jen-nes-a-da-ga, his village, on the Allegany river, in Warren county, and, for the remainder of his life, a period of fifty years, became thoroughly identified with this, region of country. Corn- planter died at Jennesadaga, aged about 105 years: A monument was erected in 1866, with appropriate ceremonies, under the superintendence of Judge Samuel P. Johnson, of Warren, Pa., and at the expense of the state of Pennsylvania, over his remains; upon which the following inscriptions were lettered : ''John O'Bail, alias Cornplanter, diM at Cornplanter toiun, February 1.8, 1836, aged about 100 years, chief of the Seneca tribe, and principal chief of the Six Nations, from the period of the Revolutionary war to the time of his death. Distinguished for talents, courage, eloquence, sobriety and love of his tribe and race, to whose welfare he devoted his time, his energies and his means, during a long and eventful life. "
BRITISH AND INDIAN EXPEDITION. 53
quarters of Brant, Guy Johnson and the Butlers and other tories who had taken refuge in Canada. It now became the headquarters of the Indians also, who had been driven from the Genesee and Allegany, and the point at which all of these maurauding parties of Indians and tories were accustomed to assemble, and from which they took their departure upon these hostile incursions ; and to which they returned, laden with spoil and scalps, and with such men, women and children as they had made prisoners, compelling them in some instances to run the gauntlet, and subjecting them to other cruelties.
In the fall of 1781, Col. Broadhead was superseded in the command at Pittsburgh by Col. William Irvine, who continued to be the commanding officer there until the close of the Revolution.
' Col. Irvine demands more than a passing notice. He was born in Ireland. Having studied medicine and surgery, he received the appointment of surgeon of a British ship of war. During his service in the French and Quebec wars, having acquired a knowledge of this country, he resolved to remove hither. After the close of the war, in 1764, he became a citizen of Carlisle, Pennsyl- vania. At the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, he was appointed colonel of the sixth Pennsylvania regiment, and soon after was^made a pris- oner while serving with the American forces in Canada, and was not exchanged until about two years afterwards. In 1779, he was commissioned a brigadier- general. After having distinguished himself at the batde of Monmouth, he was appointed commander of the Western Department, with his headquarters at Fort Pitt. He continued in this command until the close of the Revolu- tion ; and during the time he strengthened and repaired Fort Pitt, and placed this exposed frontier in a state of defense ; and, by his vigilance and ability, preserved it, in a great measure, from the ravages of the Indians. His name is inseparably connected with all the important military events occurring in the North-west. After his appointment, he acquired much knowledge of the country drained by the Allegany and its tributaries, and also of the whole North-west. He stood high in the esteem of Gen. Washington, and was greatly respected for his integrity, ability, and his faithful performance of the public trusts confided to him. After the Revolution, he held many positions of importance and honor. It was through his advice and influence that the state of Pennsylvania acquired dominion of the tract of land known as the Triangle, which gave to that state a considerable lake coast, including the harbor of Erie. The legislature of that state, as an acknowledgment of the many valuable services rendered by Gen. Irvine, presented him with a tract of land in the county of Warren, at the mouth of the Broken Straw, where Irvineton is now situated, and where his esteemed grandson. Dr. Wm. A. Irvine, now resides. Gen. Irvine died in Philadelphia the 29th of July, 1804.
There is reason to believe that, while Gen. Irvine was in command at Pittsburgh, an expedition was organized at Fort Niagara for an attack on Fort Pitt; and that, in 1782, a large party of Bridsh and Indians proceeded so far as to actually embark in canoes upon Chautauqua lake, where the
54 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
expedition was abandoned on account of the supposed strength of Fort Pitt, and was resolved into small war parties, one of which burned Hannastown. The party which burned this place, and which may have constituted a part of the force assembled around Chautauqua lake, consisted of about 60 white refuf^ees and 300 Indians, led by the celebrated Seneca Chief Guzasuttea, sometimes called Kiasola.'*' Hannastown was situated in Westmoreland county, in Pennsylvania, and was the first place where courts were held west of the Allegany mountains. During the Revolutionary war it was an impor- tant post in Western Pennsylvania. It was entirely destroyed by this party of whites and Indians in July, 1782. A considerable number of people residing in Hannastown and vicinity were either killed or carried prisoners to Canada. After the close of the war the captives were delivered up, and they returned to their homes.t
Washington's Correspondence with Gen. Irvine. Col. Irvine was subsequently promoted to the rank of general ; and he afterwards, in the course of a correspondence with Gen. Washington, alludes to this expedition, giving many other interesting particulars respecting Chau- tauqua county, which had before that time been visited by him. Commu- nication between the waters of Lake Erie and the Ohio river had been a subject of inquiry with certain distinguished gentlemen; and Gen. Wash- ino-ton, for information upon that subject, addressed a letter to Gen. Irvine, dated January 10, 1788, inquiring of him : — i. As to the face of the country between the sources of canoe navigation of the Cuyahoga, which empties itself into Lake Erie, and the Big Beaver, and between the Cuyahoga and the Muskingum. 2. As to the distance between the waters of the Cuyahoga and each of the two rivers above mentioned. 3. Whether it would be prac- ticable, and not expensive, to cut a canal between the Cuyahoga and either of the above rivers, so as to open a communication between the waters of Lake Erie and the Ohio. 4. Whether there is any more direct, practicable and easy communication than these between the waters of Lake Erie and the Ohio, by which the fur and peltry of the upper country can be trans- ferred.:}: In answer to this letter, Gen. Irvine replied as follows :
"New York, Jan. 27, 1788.
"Sir: I have been honored by your letter of the nth instant. I need not tell you how much pleasure it would give me to answer your queries to your satisfaction ; but I am persuaded that no observation short of an actual survey will enable you to gratify your correspondents abroad (particularly in relation to your third query), with such accuracy as to state anything posi- tively. I will, however, relate to you such facts as have come within my own knowledge, as well as accounts of persons whom I think are to be con- fided in.
" From a place called Mahoning, on the Big Beaver, to the head of the Falls of Cuyahoga, it is about thirty miles. Although the country is hilly,
* Craig's Hist, of Pittsburgh. + Penn. Hist. Coll., title Cumberland Co., 633.
JSparl<.s' Washington's Writings, Vol. IX., 303.
WASHINGTON'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH IRVINE. 55
it is not mountainous. The principal elevation is called Beech Ridge, which is not high, though extensive, being several miles over, with a flat and moist country on the summit, and some places inclining to be marshy. The diffi- culty of traveling is much increased by the beech roots with which the tim- ber is heavily incumbered. The Cuyahoga above the Great Falls is rapid and rocky, and is interrupted by several lesser falfs on the branch which heads towards that part of the Big Beaver called the Mahoning. This infor- mation I had from an intelligent person then loading a sloop at the mouth of the Cuyahoga for Detroit. He added, that an old Indian assured him that it was only fifteen miles across from the Mahoning to a navigable creek a few miles east of the Cuyahoga ; that he had employed the Indian to clear a road, and when that was done he intended to explore the country himself. I presume this service was not performed, as this gentleman, man and his horses, were all destroyed, and his store-house burned, by the Indians. Captain Bady, a partisan officer, informed me that the sources of the Big Beaver, Muskingum, and a large deep creek which empties into Lake Erie, fifteen or twenty miles above Cuyahoga, are within a few miles of each other (perhaps four or five), and the country level. Several other persons of cred- ibility and information have assured me that the portage between Muskingum and the waters falling into the lake, in wet seasons, does not exceed fifteen miles ; some say two, but I believe the first-named distance is the safest to credit.
" At Mahoning, and for many miles above and below, I found the course of the Big Beaver to be east and west, from which I conclude this stream to be nearest to the main branch of the Cuyahoga ; and on comparing the several accounts, I am led to think that the shortest communication betw-een the waters of Beaver, Muskingum and Lake Erie, will be east and west of Cuyahoga.
" I have also been informed by a gentleman, that the sources of Grand river, and a branch of the Beaver called Shenango, are not twelve miles apart, the country hilly. I know the Shenango to be a boatable stream at its confluence with the Beaver, twenty miles from the Ohio.
" I dropped down the Beaver from Mahoning to the Great Falls (about seven miles from the Ohio) in a canoe, on the first of July, 1784, without the least difficulty. At this season all the western waters are remarkably low ; and although some ripples appear, there is nothing to cause any material obstruction. The falls, at first view, appear impracticable at low water ; indeed, too difficult at any season ; nevertheless, they have been passed at all seasons. I met two men in a flat-bottomed boat a few miles above the falls, who had carried their cargo half a mile on shore, and then warped up their empty boat. They set with poles the rest of the way to Mahoning. The boat carried one and a half tons ; but in some seasons there will be water enough for loads of five tons. Canoes, it is said, have ascended twenty-five miles higher than the Mahoning, which certainly must be near one branch of Muskingum, as it continues in a westerly course ; and the most easterly branch of that river, it is agreed by all who have been in that quarter, approaches very near to the waters falling into the lake ; all agree, likewise, that the rivers north of the dividing ridge are deep and smooth, the country being level.
" Following the Indian path, which generally keeps in • the low ground along the river, the distance from the mouth of the Big Beaver to Mahoning is about fifty miles; which, from the computed distance thence to Cuyahoga,
56 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
gives eighty miles in all. But I am certain a much better road will be found by k-eeping along the ground which divides the waters of the Big and Little Beavers.
" But this digression I must beg your pardon for. To your further query I think I shall be able to afford you more satisfaction, as I can point out a more practicable and ejfsy communication, by which the articles of trade you mention can be transported from Lake Erie, than by any other hitherto mentioned route; at least until canals are cut. This is by a branch of the Allegany, which is navigable by boats of considerable burthen, to within eight miles of Lake Erie. I examined the greater part of the communica- tion myself, and such parts as I did not, was done by persons before and subsequent to my being there, whose accounts can scarce be doubted.
"■ From Fort Pitt to Venango by land, on the Lidian and French path, is computed to be ninety miles; by water it is said to be one-third more. But as you know the country so far, I will forbear giving a more particular account of it ; but proceed to inform you that I set out and traveled by land from Venango, though frequently on the beach or within high-water mark, (the country being in many places impassable for a horse,) to a confluence of a branch of the river called Coniwango, which is about sixty-five miles from French creek. The general course of the Allegany between these two creeks is north-east. The course of the Coniwango is very near due north;
it is about yards wide. It is upwards of yards, thirty miles from
its confluence with the Allegany at a fork. It is deep and not very rapid. To the Coniwango fork of the Allegany, the navigation is rather better than from Venango to Fort Pitt. I traveled about twenty-five miles a day. Two Indians pushed a loaded canoe, and encamped with me every night. As the Coniwango is crooked, I think it must be forty miles from the Allegany to its fork by water. One of the forks continues in a northern direction about seven miles to a beautiful lake. The lake is noticed on Hutchins' map, by the name of Lake Jadaque. The map is badly executed. It extends, from the best information I could obtain, to within nine miles of Lake Erie ; it is from one to two miles broad, and deep enough for navigation. I was taken sick, which prevented my journey over to Lake Erie.
" The following account I had from a chief of the Seneca tribe, as well as from a white man named Mathews, a Virginian, who says that he was taken prisoner by the Indians at Kanawha, in 1777. He has lived with the Indians since that time. As far as I could judge, he appeared to be well acquainted with this part of the country. I employed him as interpreter. He stated that from the upper end of Jadaqua lake, it is not more than nine miles along the path or road to Lake Erie, and that there was formerly a wagon road between the two lakes.
"The Indian related, that he was about fourteen years old when the French went first to establish a post at Fort Pitt ; that he accompanied an uncle who was a chief warrior, on that occasion, who attended the French ; that the head of Lake Jadaque was the spot where the detachment em- barked ; that they fell down to Fort Duquesne without any obstruction, in large canoes, with all the artillery, stores, provisions, etc.* He added that
*The first expedition sent by the French against Fort Pitt, was that commanded by Captain Contrecoeur, in the spring succeeding the cutting out of the Portage road, and which compelled the capitulation of Pittsburgh, in April, 1 754, an account of which is in the foregoing pages.
WASHINGTON'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH IRVINE. 57
French creek was made the medium of communication afterwards ; why, he could not tell, but always wondered at it, as he expressed himself, knowing the other to be so much better. The Seneca related many things to corrobo- rate and convince me of its' truth. He stated that he was constantly em- ployed by the British during "the late war, and had the rank of captain; and that he commanded the party which was defeated oti the Allegany by Colonel Broadhead ; that in the year 1782, a detachment composed of 300 British and 500 Indians, was formed, and actually embarked in canoes on Lake Jadaque, with twelve pieces of artillery, with an avowed intention of attack- ing Fort Pitt. This expedition, he says, was laid aside, in consequence of the reported repairs and strength of Fort Pitt, carried by a spy from the neighborhood of the fort. They then contented themselves with the usual mode of warfare, by sending small parties on the frontier, one of which burned Hannastown. I remember very well that, in August, 1782, we picked up at Fort Pitt a number of canoes, which had* drifted down the river; and I received repeated accounts, in June and July, from a Canadian who deserted to me, as well as from some friendly Indians, of this arma- ment ; but I never knew before then where they had assembled.*
" Both ]\Iathews and the Seneca desired to conduct me, as a further proof ot their veracity, to the spot, on the shore of Lake Jadaque, where lies one of the four-pnunders left by the Firench. Major Finley, who has been in that country since I was, informed me that he had seen the gun. Mathews was very desirous that I should explore the eSst fork of the Coniwango; but my sickness prevented me. His account is, that it is navigable about thirty miles up from the junction of the tiorth and west branch, to a swamp vvhich is about half a mile wide; that on the north side of this swamp a large creek has its source, called "Catterauque " [Cattaraugus], which falls into Lake Erie, forty miles from the foot of this lake; that he has several times been of parties who crossed over, carrying the canoes across the swamps. He added, that the Catterauque watered much the finest country between Buffalo and Presque Isle.
" A letter has been published lately in a Philadelphia newspaper, written by one of the gentlemen employed in running the boundary line between New York and Pennsylvania, which fully supports these accounts. As well as I can remember, his words are: 'We pushed up a large branch of the Allegany, called Chataghque (so he spells the name), which is from one half mile to two or three wide, and near twenty long. The country is level, and the land good, to a great extent, on both sides. We ascended the dividing ridge between the two lakes. From this place a most delightful prospect was open before us.' He then dwells on the scene before him and future prospects, not to the present purpose; but concludes by saying that the waters of Lake Erie cannot be brought to the Ohio, as the summit of the dividing ridge is 700 feet higher than Lake Erie. 'We traveled,' he con-
* In 1822, William Benius, in making an attempt to deepen the channel of the outlet of Chautauqua lake, in that villaj;e, discovered a row of piles averaging four inches in diame- ter, and from two and one-half to three and one-half feet in length, driven firmly into the earth across the bed of the stream. Axe marks were plainly visible on each of the four sides of those piles, the wood of vvhich was sound. The tops of these piles were worn smooth, and did not appear, when discovered, to reach above the bed of the stream. — Hon. E. T. Foote. Warren s History of Cliaittaiiqua County. Other evidences existed indicating the presence of armed forces within the county anterior to its settlement. t
58 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
tinues, 'along the Indian path to the lake, which is only nine miles, though very crooked. A good wagon road may be made, which will not exceed seven miles, as the hill is not steep.'
"I regret that this detail has been extended to so great a length, for I fear that it will rather weary than afford you satisfaction. Being obliged to blend the information of* others, with that which came within my own observation, in some degree renders it unavoidable.
"I have the honor to be, with great respect,
" Your most obedient servant,
"William Irvine."
This letter was copied by Dr. William A. Irvine, from the original lent to his father, Callender Irvine, by Judge Washington; and it contains perhaps the first written description extant of Chautauqua lake and outlet. Chau- tauqua lake was then rarely visited, except by the Seneca, who came there to hunt, and to capture the excellent fish, for which it is now so justly cele- brated, and which its pure waters yielded in great abundance. The few white men that wandered as far as its shores, found it a secluded lake, buried in the heart of the wilderness, where the wild fowl gathered unmo- lested, and where the howl of the wolf could be heard nightly among its neighboring hills, and the lonely cry of the loon across its waters. Although the lake was rarely seen by thbse who could appreciate its beauties, yet it was perhaps then more beautiful than now. In spring, the margin of every inlet and cove, and its whole shore, lay concealed beneath a mass of green foliage, that rolled back in leafy billows on every side, to the summit of the surrounding hills, and which the frosts in autumn changed to those bright and varied hues that belong only to an American forest. Even the rough French and English voyagers that sometimes may have traversed it when it was a deep solitude, could not have beheld, without admiration, its clear waters and beautiful shores.
General Washington answered this letter from General Irvine, as follows :
"Mount Vernon, i 8th February, 1788.
" Sir : I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 27 th ult., and to thank you for the information contained in it. As a communication be- tween the waters of Lake Erie and those of Ohio is a matter which promises great public utiUty, and as every step towards the investigation of it may be considered as promoting the general interest of our country, I need make no apology to you for any trouble that I have given upon the subject.
" I am fully sensible that no account can be sufficiently accurate to hazard any operations upon, without an actual survey. My object in wishing a solu- tion of the queries proposed to you, was, that I might be enabled to return answers, in some degree satisfactory, to several gentlemen of distinction in foreign countries, who have appealed to me for information on the subject, in behalf of others who wish to engage in the fur trade, and at the same time gratify my own curiosity, and assist me in forming a judgment of the prac- ticability of opening communication, should it ever be seriously in con- templation.
" I. Could a channel once be opened to convey the fur and peltry from the lakes into the Eastern country, its advantages would be so obvious as to
WASHINGTON S CORRESPONDENCE WITH IRVINE. 59
induce an opinion, that it would in a short time become the channel of con- veyance for much the greatest part of the commodities brought from thence.
" 2. The trade which has been carried on between New York and that quarter, is subject to great inconvenience from the length of the communica- tion, number of portages, and, at seasons, from ice ; yet it has, notwithstand- ing, been prosecuted with success.
" I shall feel myself much obliged by any further information that you may find time and inclination to communicate to me on this head. I am, sir, with great esteem, your most obedient. Sec,
" George Washington."
General Irvine afterwards wrote to Gen. Washington upon the subject, as follows :
"New York, Oct. 6th, 1788.
" Sir : I do myself the honor to enclose a sketch of the waters of the Allegany, which approach near to Lake Erie. It is taken from an actual survey made by the persons who ran the line between the states of New York and Pennsylvania. These gentlemen say that the main branch of the Alle- gany falls in Pennsylvania, and that there is only seven or eight miles land carriage between it and the head of a branch of Susquehanna, called Tioga, which is navigable for large boats at most seasons. The navigation of Caniwago, I know, is much preferable to French creek.
" I have the honor to be with the highest respect, sir, your excellency's most obedient and humble servant, Wm. Irvine."
This letter was never before published. It is found bound in a volume of the Washington Papers, and is entered in an index of those papers made by Rev. Jared Sparks. It was probably written to Gen. Washington by the direction of Gen. Irvine. Accompanying this letter was an accurate map of "Chautaugh" lake, and " Canewango river;" also the Chautauqua Creek portage, from Lake Erie to Chautauqua lake, and also the portage to Le Boeuf, and other localities. Washington replied to Gen. Irvine, as follows :
Mount Vernon, 31st October, 1788.
" Dear Sir : The letter with which you favored me, dated the 6th instant, enclosing a sketch of waters near the line which separates your state from New York, came duly to hand, for which I offer you my acknowledgments and thanks.
" The extensive inland navigation with which this country abounds, and the easy communication which many of the rivers afford, with the amazing territory to the westward of us, will certainly be productive of infinite advan- tage to the Atlantic states, if the legislatures of those through which they pass have liberality and public spirit enough to improve them. For my part, I \vish sincerely that every door to that country may be set wide open, that the commercial intercourse with it may be rendered as free and easy as possible. This, in my judgment, is the best, if not the only cement that can bind those people to us for any length of time, and we shall, I think, be deficient in foresight and wisdom if we neglect the means to effect it. Our interest is so much in unison with the policy of the measure, that nothing but that ill-aimed and misapplied parsimony and contracted way of thinking, which intermingles so much in all our public councils, can counteract it.
" If the Chautauqua lake, at the head of the Connewango river, approx-
60 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
imates Lake Erie as nearly as it is laid down in the draft you sent me, it presents a very short portage indeed between the two, and access to all those above the latter. I am, etc., George Washington."
It will be seen by this correspondence, that Washington, at that early day, clearly foresS,w the great importance of obtaining a ready communication between the waters of the East and the West, which was then recjuired only to transport the few furs and peltries collected by the Indians and trappers in the uncivilized western regions ; but which, forty-five years later, was needed to bear a tide of emigration that has constantly since then been pour- ing into the valley of the Mississippi, and to carry back to the East from that fruitful territory surplus products so vast as to require the building of the Erie Canal.
Survey of the State Boundary Line.
The original boundary line between New York and Pennsylvania extended from the north-west corner of New Jersey, along the center of the Delaware river, to the 42d degree of north latitude, and thence west to Lake Erie. This line gave to the state of Pennsylvania only four or five miles of coast on Lake Erie, and no harbor. Samuel Holland, on the part of New York, and David Rittenhouse, on the part of Pennsylvania, were appointed com- missioners, Novembers, 1774, to run this boundary; and in December of that year they erected a stone monument on the 42d parallel of latitude, upon a small island in the Delaware river, as the north-east corner of the state of Pennsylvania. The severity of the season prevented the further prosecution of the survey that year. The Revolution soon after commenced, and the work was postponed. In 1781, New York released to the general govern- ment the lands to which it had claim, lying west of a meridian extending through the west extremity of Lake Ontario. This line became the western boundary of Chautauqua county ; and these lands constituted the tract since known as the Triangle. They were sold by the government of the United States, in 1792, to the state of Pennsylvania, and gave to that state 202,180 acres of land, thirty miles of coast on Lake Erie, and an excellent harbor at Erie. The southern boundary of New York was run by David Rittenhouse, Andrew Ellicott and others, commissioners, in 1785, 1786 and 1787. The meridian line which forms the western boundary of our county and state, was run in 1788 and 1789, by Andrew Ellicott, the surveyor-general of the United States. An initial monument was erected by him near the shore of Lake Erie, on which was placed the following inscription : On the east side — "Meridian of the we§t end of Lake Ontario, state of New York, 18 miles and 525 chains from the northern boundary of Pennsylvania, August 23, 1790." On the west side — " Territory annexed to the state of Pennsylvania. North latitude 42° 16' 32". Variation, 25' west." This monument having been partially destroyed, and what remained of it endangered by the encroach- ments of Lake Erie, it was replaced in pursuance of an act of the legislature, with appropriate ceremonies, September 15, 1869, by a new monument,
INDIAN WARS AND THE CONCLUSION. 6 1
placed 440 feet south of the origuial monument, composed of Quincy granite, two feet wide and about eight inches thick. It has on its east and west faces a copy of the inscription on the corresponding faces of the original monument, and on its north and south faces the following inscription : North face— "1869, latitude of this state, 42 deg., 15 min., 56 sec. 9; longitude, 79 deg., 45 min., 54 sec. 4. Variation, 2 deg. 35 sec. west. South face— " 1869. Erected by the states of New York and Pennsylvania, 440 feet south of a monument now dilapidated, on which were the inscriptions on the east and west faces of this monument." William Evans represented the state of Pennsylvania, and John V. L. Pruyn, George R. Perkins, S. B. Wool worth and George W. Patterson, represented the state of New York.
The state of Pennsylvania held treaties with the Indians : one at Fort Stanwix, in 1784, and another at Fort Harmer, in 1789, at which last place the chiefs present agreed that the said state of Pennsylvania shall, and may at any time they may think proper, survey, dispose of, and settle all that part of the aforesaid country, lying and being west of a line running along the middle of the Connewango river, from its confluence with the Allegany river into " Chadochque Lake ■" thence along the middle of said lake, to the north end of the same ; thence a meridian line from the north end of the said lake, to the margin or shore of Lake Erie. These treaties, it was thought, secured the title to the Triangle. Cornplanter sustained the title thus acquired, but a majority of the Iroquois, and their master spirit the Mohawk Chief Brant, were bitterly opposed, as he was in favor of restricting the whites to the territory lying east of the Allegany and Ohio, and the settlement of the Triangle was never fully acquiesced in by the Indians.
Indian Wars, and the Conclusion.
The disasters that attended the celebrated expedition of Gen. Harmer against the Indians in 1790, encouraged them to renewed acts of hostility; and in the spring of 1791, the setdements along the Allegany river above Pittsburgh were repeatedly visited by them, and women and children often massacred; even the Triangle suffered from their hostile incursions. The defeat of St. Clair by the Indians, which occurred in November, 1791, rendered them still more bold and ferocious ; and for a year thereafter great alarm extended along the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania; and not until the successful termination of Wayne's expedition into the Indian country, were the frontier settlements entirely freed from danger of Indian hostihty. On the 20th of August, 1794, Gen. Wayne completely defeated the Indians in a general battle on the Maumee river. , This decisive victory entirely put an end to their power for further harm to the border settlers. By a treaty made at Greenville with the different tribes of Western Indians, on the 30th of July, 1795, the greater part of the territory of Ohio was ceded to the United States, and a long period of border war ended, and peace for the first time established in these Western wilds which had never known any other condition than that of continued savage and relendess strife.
62 . HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
Chautauqua county, before this treaty, had been a deep soHtude, far dis- tant from the most advanced outposts of permanent settlement; yet often the scene of warHke demonstration. Fleets filled with armed and veteran Frenchmen had passed along its shores; Beaujen, the gallant Frenchman, who led the handful of his countrymen that defeated Braddock; St. Pierre, La Force, and Joncaire — names that have become celebrated in the history of the French occupation in America, were once familiar with this county ; and the war-path of veritable savage warriors armed with tomahawk and scalping-knife, may have led through its forests ; and later, during the Amer- ican Revolution, it is probable that an armed force of British and Indians had been borne upon the waters of our beautiful lake. But this treaty suddenly opened the West to receive the tide of emigration that has not, from that time to this day, ceased to flow.
The state of Ohio, September 5th, 1795, conveyed to the "Connecticut Land Company" the Western Reserve, and on the 4th of July, 1796, the first permanent settlement of Northern Ohio was made at Conneaut, in Ash- tabula county. The fall following, a settlement was commenced at Cleve- land, where it was designed by the proprietors of the Western Reserve to establish the capital of a new state, to be called " New Connecticut,'' under the mistaken idea, that by the Constitution of the United States, the rights they had acquired by the purchase of the soil gave them political jurisdiction also, and authority to found a state. Emigration from the east at first pressed towards the Western Reserve, passing by the Holland Purchase, the lands of which had not yet been put into market. When these lands were offered for sale (as the Holland Land Company sold theirs for $2.50 and $3.00 per acre on a credit, while Western lands were sold at a less price for cash), those who possessed the ready means, and were able to pay at once for their farms, sought more attractive homes in the fertile prairies and flowery openings of Ohio and the West ; consequently the first settlers of the Holland Purchase, and those particularly of the county of Chautauqua, were the poorest class of people — men who often expended their last dollar to procure the article for their land. Chautauqua county then was densely covered with a majes- tic forest of the largest growth, which cast its dark shadows everywhere — over hills and valleys, and along the streams and borders of the lakes. No- where in northern latitudes could be found trees so tall and large ; and while none could behold, without awe and pleasure, the grandeur and grace of the^e mighty woods, yet a home here, to cope with and subdue them, promised a life-time of toil and privation ; and no one felt invited hither but strong and hardy pioneers — men of the frontier who were accustomed to wield the axe and handle the rifle ; who could grapple with the forest, and rough it in the wilderness, and think it ease ; who could reap the thin harvest, and live upon the coarse and often scanty fare of the woods, and call it plenty ; conse- quently the first settlers of this county were mostly from the backwoods region, at the western verge of settlement. They brought with them strong arms, stout hearts, and a thorough knowledge of tlie rude expedients of life
PRELIMINARY HISTORY. . 6^
in the woods. They were a body of picked young men, possessing vigorous bodies and practical minds. Among their number were often men of marked ability, whose talents would honor any station. Although the most of them possessed but little of the learning of books and schools, not a itw were cultivated and accomplished — men and women of refinement and education, whose attainments were such as to prepare them to adorn any society. The most of the early settlers were, however, educated in a true sense : they possessed that learning which, in the situation in which it was their fortune to be cast, best fitted them for a life of usefulness, and enabled them to con- tribute their full share in the great work of progress and improvement allotted to them. They were skillful adepts in their calling ; accomplished masters in wood craft, and in all that pertained to the formidable task of preparing the way for the westward expansion of civilization and population. Where and when they performed this labor w^ill be told in the succeeding pages of this history. How quickly, and how well it was done, the green hillsides and blooming valleys of our county fully attest.
PRELIMINARY HISTORY— THE HOLLAND COMPANY'S
PURCHASE.
America was discovered by Columbus in 1492. In 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian, and his son Sebastian, under the auspices of Henry VIL, king of England, discovered North America. He sailed along the coast 300 leagues, and planted on the soil the banners of England and of Venice. He saw no person, though he believed the country not uninhabited.
Efforts were early made by Spain, France and England, to establish colo- nies in North America. More, however, than a century elapsed before many permanent settlements were made. In 1568, the Spaniards established a small colony in Florida. The French, in 1605, planted a small colony in Nova Scotia, and in 1608, founded the city of Quebec. In 1607, the English made a settlement at Jamestown, in Virginia. New York was^et-. tied by the Dutch in 1614. In 1620, the "Pilgrim Fathers" landed on Plymouth Rock, and commenced the settlement of New England.
The tract of country called New England, granted by James I., king of England, to the Plymouth Company, extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. In 1628, a part of this tract, also extending to the Pacific, was granted by the Plymouth Company to Sir Henry Roswell and his asso- ciates, called the Massachusetts Bay Company. The province of New York was granted in 1663, by Charles II., to the Duke of York and Albany [afterwards King James II.], who subsequently granted to Berkeley and Cartaret the province of New Jersey. The remainder of the country granted by Charles II. constituted the province of New York, which extended north to the Canada line ; but its extent westward was not definitely stated.
64 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
The first charter of Massachusetts, granted by King Charles I., in 1628, appears to have been vacated by quo warranto in 1684; and a second charter was granted by WilUam and Mary, in 1691, in which the territorial limits of the province, although difterently bounded, are also made to extend to the Pacific Ocean. Under these conflicting grants, disputes arose between some of the states as to the extent of their respective territorial rights and jurisdiction.
Those who are familiar with the political history of this country, will remember that, near and soon after the close of the Revolutionary war, several of the states ceded their western lands to the general government as a fund to aid in the payment of the war debt. New York ceded hers by deed dated March i, 1781, two years before the peace. In 1783, Congress requested those states which had not already done so, to cede portions of their territory for that purpose. Virginia ceded March i, 1784; Massachu- setts, April 19, 1785 ; and Connecticut, September 13, 1786, transferred her claim, reserving about 3,000,000 acres in the north-east part of the present state of Ohio. This tract was called the " Western Reserve of Connecticut." On the 30th of May, 1800, the jurisdictional claims of that state to this Reserve were surrendered to the United States.
The dispute, however, between the states of New York and Massachusetts was not yet settled. Of the territory which, by the treaty of peace of 1783, was ceded to the United States, each of the individual states claimed such portions as were comprehended within their original grants or charters. Mas- sachusetts consequently claimed a strip of land extending to the westerly bounds of the United States, thus dividing the state of New York into two parts. Both New York and Massachusetts had ceded all their lands westerly of the same meridian line, namely, a line running from the most westerly bend of Lake Ontario, south to the northern line of Pennsylvania, and form- ing the present western boundary of the state of New York. But Massa- chusetts still claimed nearly 20,000 square miles east of that line. The controversy was finally settled by commissioners on the part of each of the two states, who met at Hartford, December 16, 1786. In accordance with th^ decision, Massachusetts ceded to New York all claim to the government, sovereignty, and jurisdiction of all the lands in controversy; and New York ceded to Massachusetts and to her grantees the preemption right or fee of the land, subject to the title of the natives, of all that part of the state of New York lying west of a line beginning on the north boundary line of Pennsylvania, on the parallel of 42 degrees of north latitude, 82 miles west of the north-east corner of said state, and running thence due north through Seneca lake to Lake Ontario, excepting a mile's breadth along the east bank of the Niagara river. The land, the preemption right of which was thus ceded, was about six million acres.
In April, 1788, Massachusetts contracted to sell to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham the right of preemption in all the lands ceded by the convention of the i6th of December, 1786, at Hartford. In July, 1788,
PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 65
Gorham and Phelps purchased the Indian title to about 2,600,000 acres of the eastern part of their purchase from Massachusetts. The western bound- ary of these lands was a line running from the north line of Pennsylvania north to the junction of the Shanahasgwaikon (now called Canascraga) creek and the Genesee river ; thence northwardly along the Genesee river to a point two miles north of Canawaugus village; thence due west 12 miles; thence in a direction northwardly, so as to be 12 miles distant from the most west- ward bend of the Genesee river to Lake Ontario. This tract, the Indian tide to which had been extinguished by Phelps and Gorham, was confirmed to them by an act of the legislature of Massachusetts, November 21, 1788, and is that which has been designated as the " Phelps and Gorham Purchase."
The survey of this tract into townships and lots was immediately com- menced ; and, within the space of two years, about fifty townships had been disposed of, principally by whole townships or large portions of townships, to individuals and companies.
Phelps and Gorham, having paid about one-third of the purchase money of the entire tract purchased of Massachusetts, were unable to make further payments. They had stipulated to pay in a kind of scrip, or " consolidated stock," issued by that state. This scrip they could buy at 70 or 80 per cent, below par. But this stock having risen to par, they were unable, at this rate, to fulfill their engagements. On the 15th of February, 1790, they proposed to the legislature of Massachusetts to surrender to the state two-thirds in quantity and value of the whole of the contracted lands ; two of their three bonds for ^100,000 each, given for the purchase money, to be canceled. The tract released by the Indians was to be retained by Gorham and Phelps ; but if the contents should exceed one-third of the whole, the surplus was to be paid for in money at the average price of the whole.
Two other proposals, made a few days later, were accepted by the legisla- ture, but reserving to themselves the right of accepting, in preference, at any time within one year, the proposal of the 15th of February, 1790; and on the 19th of February, 17 91, notice was given to Gorham and Phelps that the legislature had elected, that the two third parts of the lands should remain the property of the commonwealth; and the unpaid bonds were rehnquished to Phelps and Gorham. The tract released by the Indians was found to exceed in quantity one-third of the whole territory ; and the excess was subsequently [April 6, 18 13] paid by Phelps and Gorham. That tract, with the exception of the parts sold, and of two townships reserved by Gor- ham and Phelps, was sold by them to Robert Morris, and is described in the conveyance, dated i8th No^vember, 1790, as containing 2,100,000 acres.
In March, 1791, Massachusetts agreed to sell to Samuel Ogden, agent for Robert Morris, all the lands ceded to that state by New York, except that part which had been conveyed to Phelps and Gorham, the state reserving one equal undivided sixtieth part of the unexcepted lands. This reservation in the original sale to Morris, was caused by a contract made by Gorham and Phelps, prior to the surrender of their claim to Massachusetts, for the 5
ee HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
sale of one-sixtieth of the entire territory to John Butler. Butler subse- quently assigned his right to this one-sixtieth to Morris, who was thus enabled to acquire a title from Massachusetts.
In pursuance of this contract, Massachusetts, on the nth of May, 1791, conveyed to Robert Morris, as the assignee under Samuel Ogden, a tract of land containing about 500,000 acres, bounded on the west by a line drawn from a point in the north line of Pennsylvania, twelve miles west from the south- west corner of the land confirmed to Gorham and Phelps, to Lake Ontario. This tract forms no part of the lands subsequently sold by Morris to the Holland Land Company, and is still known as the " Morris Reserve."
The lands of the Holland Land Company are embraced in four deeds from Massachusetts to Robert Morris, all dated May 11, 1791, Samuel Ogden concurring in these conveyances. Each deed conveyed a distinct tract of land, supposed to contain 800,000 acres. The first tract is sixteen miles wide, from the Pennsylvania north line to the northern boundary of the state, and comprehends ranges i, 2 and 3, as laid down in the map of Ellicott s survey. The second tract is of the same breadth, and comprehends ranges 4, 5 and 6. The third tract is of the same breadth, and comprehends ranges 7 and 8, and 263 chains and 7 6 links off the easterly side of range 9. Tht fourth tract embraces all the land in the state west of the third tract, and compre- hends the remaining westerly part of range 9, and the whole of ranges 10, II 12, 13, 14 and 15. The consideration of the first three tracts was ^15,000 each; for the fourth, ^10,000. By these conveyances, Robert Morris became seized of the preemptive title to all the lands in the state west of the eastern boundary of the Holland Purchase, excepting only the reserved strip of land, one mile in width, along the Niagara river.
Aliens being legally incompetent to hold and convey real estate, the lands of the Dutch proprietors within the state of New York were purchased for their account from Robert Morris, and conveyed, for their benefit, to trustees. On the nth of April, 1796, a special act was passed for the relief of Wilhem Willink, Nicholas Van Staphorst, Christian Van Eeghen, Hen- drick Vollenhoven, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, and Pieter Stadnitski ; and on the 24th of February, 1797, a supplementary act was passed, includ- ing the names of Jan Willink, Jacob Van Staphorst, Nicholas Hubbard, Pieter Van Eeghen, Isaac Ten Cate, Jan Stadnitski, and Aernout Van Beef- tingh. By these two acts, the trustees were authorized to hold the lands contracted and paid for by all or any of these individuals, and for the period of seven years to sell the same to citizens of the United States. Under the general alien act of April 2d, 1798, the titles were afterwards vested in the names of the Dutch proprietors by new conveyances. By this general act, which was to continue for three years, all conveyances to aliens, not being the subjects of powers or states at war with the United States, were declared to be valid, so as to vest the estate in such aliens, their heirs and assigns for- ever. The construction of this was settled by an act passed March 5th, 1819, which declared and enacted that all conveyances made to aliens under the
THE HOLLAND PURCHASE. ^^
act of April, 1798, should be deemed valid, and vest the lands thereby con- veyed in the several grantees, so as to authorize them and their heirs and assigns, although aliens, to devise or convey the same to any other alien or aUens, not being the subjects of a power or state at war with the United States.
The lands purchased by the Holland Land Company embraced an area of about 3,600,000 acres, and were originally conveyed in several tracts or parcels, and at different times, by Robert Morris, to trustees for the benefit of the Dutch proprietors. The first tract thus conveyed, called the " Million and a half Acre Tract," embracing 422 chains and 56 links off the west part of range 7, and all the land west thereof to the Pennsylvania line, was con- veyed, December 24, 1792, in two parcels. The first of these, containing one million acres, embraced the eastern part of the tract ; the second parcel, the western part, comprehending ranges 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15, as laid down on Ellicott's map.
The second tract, called the "One Million Acre Tract," was conveyed P'ebruary 27, 1793, and embraced townships 5 to 16, inclusive, in range i ; 4 to 16 in ranges 2 and 3 ; and i to 4 in ranges 4, 5 and 6.
The third tract, called the " Eight Hundred Thousand Acre Tract," was conveyed July 20, 1793.
The fourth tract, called the " Three Hundred Thousand Acre Tract," was conveyed July 20, 1793. Though named as being a single tract, it embraced three different parcels, neither two of them consisting of contiguous territory. The first of these parcels comprehended townships i, 2, 3, and the east half of 4, of range i, and i, 2 and 3, of ranges 2 and 3, intended to contain 200,000 acres. The second and third parcels comprehended 113 chains and 68 links of the east part of range 7, which was not included in the million and a half acres before described. The portion of this strip lying south of the Buffalo creek reservation, was intended to contain 54,000 acres, and the part north of the reservation, 46,000 acres.
The names of the trustees to whom the conveyances were made by Morris, were not in all cases the same, as will appear from the following statement of the chain of title to each tract :
Deed of first tract [1,500,000 acres], i. Robert Morris to Herman Le Roy and John Lincklaen, December 31, 1792. 2. Le Roy and Lincklaen to ¥/illiam Bayard, May 30, 1795. 3. Wm. Bayard to Le Roy, Lincklaen, and Gerrit Boon, June i, 1795. 4. Le Roy, Lincklaen and Boon to Paul Busti, July 9, 1798. 5. Busti to Le Roy, Bayard, James McEvers, Linck- laen, and Boon, upon trust for the benefit of Wilheni Willink and others, with covenant to convey the same according to their direction and appoint- ment— deed dated July 10, 1798. 6. Le Roy, Bayard, McEvers, Linck- laen, and Boon, to Wilhem Willink, Nicholas Van Staphorst, Pieter Van Eeghen, Hendrick Vollenhoven, and Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, Dec. 31, 1798. 7. The title of the last named grantees was confirmed to thera by Thomas L. Ogden and Gouverneur Morris, by deed, February 18, 1801.
68 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
Deed of second tract [1,000,000 acres], i. Robert Morris to Le Roy, Lincklaen, and Boon, Feb. 27, 1793, confirmed after the extinguishment of the Indian title, by deed between the same parties, June i, 1798. 2. Le Roy, Lincklaen, and Boon to Paul Busti, July 9, 1798. 3. Busti to Le Roy, Bayard, McEvers, Lincklaen, and Boon, in trust for the benefit of Wilhem Willink and others, July 10, 1798. 4. Le Roy, Bayard, McEvers, Linck- laen, and Boon, to Wilhem Willink and others, December 31, 1798. 5. The title of the last named grantees was confirmed to them by Thomas L. Ogden, February 13, 1801.
Deed of the third tract [800,000 acres], i. Robert Morris to Le Roy, Lincklaen, and Boon, July 20, 1793, confirmed after the extinguishment of the Indian title, by deed between the same parties, June i, 1798. 2. Le Roy, Lincklaen, and Boon, to Paul Busti, July 9, 1798. 3. Busti to Le Roy, Bayard, McEvers, Lincklaen, and Boon, in trust for Wilhem Willink and others, July 10, 1798. 4. Le Roy, Bayard, McEvers, Lincklaen, and Boon, to Wilhelm Willink and others, July 10, 1798. 5. The title of the last named grantees was confirmed by Thomas L. Ogden, Feb. 13, 1801.
Deed of the fourth tract [300,000 acres], i. Robert Morris to Le Roy, Bayard, and Thomas Clarkson, July 20, 1793, confirmed after the extin- guishment of the Indian title, by deed between the same parties, June i, 1798. 2. Le Roy, Bayard, and Clarkson, to Paul Busti, July 9, 1798. 3. Busti to Le Roy, Bayard, and Clarkson, in trust for Wilhem Willink and Jan Willink, July 10, 1798. 4. Le Roy, Bayard, and Clarkson, to Wilhem Willink, Jan Willink, Wilhem Willink, Jr., and Jan Willink, Jr., as joint tenants, Jan. 31, 1799. 5. Title of last named grantees confirmed by T. L. Ogden, Feb. 27, 1801.
It appears from the foregoing that all the lands of the Company were con- veyed by the trustees to Paul Busti, of Philadelphia, an alien. The design of this conveyance, it is presumed, was merely to ciiange the title of the trust estate to the hands of Busti, who was general agent of the proprietors in Holland.
The necessity of the confirmatory deeds of Thomas L. Ogden and Gouver- neur Morris will appear from the following facts : Two judgments against Robert Morris had been docketed in the supreme court of the state of New York, which were found to overreach the titles of several of the purchasers under him. The first was in favor of Wm. Talbot and Wm. Allum, docketed June 8, 1797 ; the second, in favor of Solomon Townsend, docketed August 10, 1798. Previously to the year j8oo, an execution was issued on the last judgment ; and all the lands conveyed to Morris by Massachusetts were sold, and conveyed by the sheriff of Ontario county to Thomas Mather, in whose name actions of ejectment founded upon this conveyance were prosecuted in the court. In the spring of 1800, during the pendency of these ejectments, an execution was issued on the earlier judgment ; and the whole tract of country was again levied upon and advertised for sale by the sheriff.
Under these circumstance, Mr. Busti, the general agent of the Holland
THE HOLLAND PURCHASE. 69
Land Company, entered into an arrangement with Gouverneur Morris, the assignee of the earher judgment, to put an end to the claims set up under both- judgments. It was agreed that both judgments, and also a release of Mather's interest under the sheriff's deed to him, should be purchased by the Land Company, which was done ; and the judgments were assigned to the Company, April 22, 1800 ; that of Townsend by his attorney, Aaron Burr; that of Talbot and Allum, by Gouverneur Morris, the assignee of Robert Morris. Articles of agreement were at the same time entered into between Thomas L. Ogden of the first part, the individuals of the Holland Company of the second part, and Gouverneur Morris of the third part, by which it was agreed that the release from Mather should be taken in the name of Thomas L. Ogden ; that he should also become the purchaser at the approaching sale under the judgment of Talbot and Allum ; and that the title thus derived under both judgments should be held by him in trust for the purposes expressed in the agreement.
It was provided in that instrument, that the million and a half acre tract should be held subject to the issue of amicable suit, to be instituted on the equity side of the circuit of the United States for the district of New York, to determine the operation and effect of the conveyance of this tract by Robert Morris, so that if, by a decree of that court, or of the supreme court of the United States, in case of an appeal, such conveyance should be adjudged to be absolute and indefeasible, then the tract should be released and confirmed by Gouverneur Morris to the Holland Land Company. It was further provided by this agreement, that the residue of the entire tract of country should be released and confirmed by Thomas L. Ogden to the several proprietors under Robert Morris, according to the award and appoint- ment of Alexander Hamilton, David A. Ogden and Thomas Cooper.
In pursuance of this agreement, Mather's rights under the sale on Town- send's judgment, were conve)'ed to Thomas L. Ogden, April 22, i8oo; and a sale having been made under the execution issued upon the judgment of Talbot and Allum, the entire tract of country, as to all the interest which Robert Morris had therein oii the 8th of June, 1797, was conveyed by Roger Sprague, sheriff of Ontario county, by deed dated May 13, 1800. Hamilton, D. A. Ogden and Cooper made an award or appointment, January 22, 1801, directing conveyances by Thomas L. Ogden, of the whole of the lands to the several grantees under Robert Morris, the parcels to be conveyed to each to be defined by appropriate descriptions and boundaries. In conformity with this appointment, the several confirmations Avere executed by Thomas L. Ogden.
70 HISTORV OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY.
The first inquiry suggested to the reader of a history of any country or territory, is : "Where, when, and by whom was its setdement commenced?" Amongst the diverse and conflicting statements respecting the earhest settle- ment in Chautauqua county, it is difficult, if not impossible, to answer the question. It was the purpose of the writer not to become a party in this controversy, but to present sketches of the several early settlements, without any allusion to the discussion which has so long agitated the public mind. It has, however, been repeatedly intimated that this would not be satisfactory to the people generally. And as many are known to be looking for the result of the author's investigation of this question, he deems it proper to present such facts and statements as have come to his knowledge, for the consideration of those who think the subject worthy of investigation.
The late Hon. Samuel A. Brown, in a course of lectures at the Academy in Jamestown, in 1843, said in his second lecture: "Col. McMahan and Mc- Henry, both from Pennsylvania, may, with propriety, I think, be styled the pioneers of Chautauqua county, as they were the first who purchased and set- tled with the intention of making this county their permanent residence ; though one Amos Sottle had resided from 1796 to 1800 on the Cattaraugus bottoms in Hanover ; was then absent two or three years ; but afterwards returned and became a permanent resident."
This statement was probably made on the authority of Henry H. Hawkins, of Silver Creek, who, in a letter to Mr. Brown, dated Hanover, Feb. 2, 1843, wrote as follows :
" Sir : Amos Sottle came on to the Cattaraugus bottoms, and settled in the year 1796, being then about twenty-one years old, and has resided here ever since that time, with the exception of between two and three years, from about 1800 or 1801, which he spent in what was then called the North- western Territory. He is one who helped make the survey of the whole country in 1798 and 1799, under Joseph Ellicott, surveyor of the Holland Land Company."
Judge Warren, in his History of Chautauqua County, published in 1846, says :
" The first purchase of lands for the purpose of settlement within the present limits of this county, was made by Gen. McMahan, in 1801. * * * The first attempt to subdue the dense forest was made in 1802, by Col. James McMahan, near where the village of Westfield is now located. On this spot ten acres were cleared, and the first dwelling of the white man erected. Edward McHenry setded on an adjoining tract during the same year. These were the first locations of proprietors within the county, with the intention of making it a permanent residence. It should be mentioned, however, that for nearly four years previously to 1800, Amos Sottle had resided near Cattaraugus creek, in the present town of Hanover. After which he was absent for several years, and finally returned and became a permanent citizen."
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EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY. 7 1
Another says: "In 1796, one Amos Sottle located in Hanover, but removed in 1800 from the county, and did not return for several years."
.Turner, in his History of the Holland Purchase, says : "The first white resident of Chautauqua was Amos Sottle. He had resided near the mouth of Cattaraugus creek for three years before the sale of the Holland Com- pany's lands commenced."
The State Gazetteer says : " The first settlement in the county was made at the mouth of Cattaraugus creek, in 1797, by Amos Sottle. Soon after making the first improvements, Sottle left, and returned in 1801, with Mr. Sydney and Capt. Rosecrantz."
Judge Foote, in a communication in the Mayville Sentinel, of July 20, 1859, gives the result of his investigation of the subject, as follows :
" Editor Sentinel : I thank you for your efforts to preserve the early history of our county; and I trust the people will gratefully appreciate your efforts. In your article in the Sentinel, of April 20 [1859], are some mistakes that should be corrected, lest they become conceded as facts, and copied as such by future historians. Amos Sottle was not the first white settler in the county, although I know he claimed to be, and to have settled in the east part of the town of Hanover, in 1796.
" By a reference to the surveyors' minutes of the meridian and township line surveys, made in 1798-9, copies of which are in the County Clerk's ofiRce, it will be seen that Sottle was an axeman under Amzi Atwater, one of the principal surveyors, although his name does not appear in the list of surveyors in Turner's History of the Holland Purchase. The surveyors, as required, returned a list of their assistants and their places of residence, and the capacity in which they served. Sottle was reported as a resident of Chenango county, N. Y. ; and I presume the first time he ever saw the land where he subsequently settled, was when Atwater surveyed the 9th meridian, or present line between the counties of Chautauqua and Cattaraugus, in 1798. He was also an axeman in 1799. After he left the surveyors he went into the North- west Territory, and was there some years, but finally returned and settled in the present town of Hanover, about 1804, and resided there with his squa\v, or colored wife, until his death, about 1848 or '49. His statements were not very reliable. I do not find his name on any land records for several years after his actual residence in the county. Col. James McMahan was unques- tionably the first bona fide white settler in the county ; he and his elder brother, Gen. John McMahan, having been early and conspicuous pioneers, and the first purchasers of land in the county."
It is difficult to determine, from these statements, who was the first actual settler. Mr. Brown thinks McMahan and McHenry are properly styled the pioneers of Chautauqua ; yet he says Sottle had resided on the Cattaraugus from 1796 to J 800, and then was absent two or three years, and afterwards became a permanent resident. This would seem to indicate that Mr. B. did not consider Sottle a settler until after his second residence, which, if he had been absent two or three years, must have commenced in about 1802 or 1803. Judge Warren's statement naturally leads to the same conclusion. Turner gives Sottle a residence at Cattaraugus, and probably considered him a settler. The State Gazetteer states that he made a settlement there in 1797 ; and on the same page refers to Judge Foote to prove that the first
72 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
settlement in the county was made in 1794, which nobody here believes, nor has the Judge ever authorized such statement. From such contradictory statements, who can decide the question ? The first inquiry then should be respecting the credibility of aHiho7-s. These authors probably made no thorough investigation. Messrs. Brown and Warren botli state that John McMahan bought the town of Ripley, ■sccvdi Jatnes McMahan bought 4,000 acres in West- field. Mr. B. could not have made close inquiry, or he would not have committed so palpable an error ; and Judge Warren probably copied it, pre- suming it to be correct. But a worse error is that of the State Gazetteer. And so numerous are the mistakes of Mr. Turner in regard to the settlement of this county, that his authority is not reliable. He, too, makes -James McMahan the purchaser of Westfield, and the builder of mills at the mouth of Chautauqua creek. And he also calls Sottle the first white resident ot Chautauqua, and McMahan " the pioneer settler."
This exposure of the errors of these writers is not intended to invalidate the claim of either party to priority of settlement ; but only to show that their several publications are not reliable authority. A hasty canvass for the material of a history has been made, and the statements have been pub- lished without seeking confirmation from any other source. Presuming them to be correct, later authors have copied them, and thus have aided in trans- mitting them to succeeding generations. Hence we are still left to form opinions, in a great measure, from oral testimony from early settlers, long since deceased, through those of a later generation ; especially so in the case of the Cattaraugus settlement, which shows no record of a purchase ot land prior to that of Charles Avery, in 1804. It is, however, generally con- ceded that Sottle (or rather, Smvtel, as his name appears in the list of sur- veyors) was there at an earlier date ; and we have his word that he was a settler before there was one at Westfield. It is urged by the other party, that his word is not reliable, his veracity having been impeached in court by a score or more of witnesses. Several others, however, have certified their belief in his credibility.
The foregoing is a summary of the testimony on Avhich the parties in this controversy have based their respective claims. Other facts, however, have come to the knowledge of the writer, which, as a faithful historian, he deems it his duty to add to what has been given.
An early resident of the county says Sottle, long before his death, told him that he lived, at first, for a time with the Indians. Another old settler confirms this statement, and adds, that Sottle gave as a reason for leaving the Indians, and settling on the south side of the creek, that he might accumu- late property for his individual use and benefit.
Some concede Sottle's claim to having an earlier home or residence at Cattaraugus, than that of James McMahan at Westfield ; but ' question the propriety of calling the place a settlement. No clearings of consequence were made, nor was grain raised. Wm. Sydney, who came with Sottle from Ohio, to ferry emigrants across the creek, built a log house for their enter-
EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY. 73
tajnment ; but it is known that, as late as 1804, travelers were unable to procure forage for their teams, except from Indians in the vicinity. In cor- roboration of this statement, John Mack, son of John Mack who, in 1806, bought the Sydney tavern and ferry, wrote to this county, in 1873, as follows:
" There were then [1806] but three <white men on Cattaraugus Flats — Amos Settle, Ezekiel Lane, and Charles Avery. Sottle and Lane had built cabins, made small improvements, and resided in them. Common report says Amos Sottle came to Cattaraugus in 1797, located i^ miles from the mouth of the creek, and made improvements as above stated, and where he lived in 1806. There was no land cleared for grain raising, and no grain to be had, except that bought of the Indians to supply our own wants or those of the traveler. These wants were soon remedied by the energy and perse- ^verance of early settlers.
" The ferrying of the creek was very unsafe. A small scow only, sufficient to float a wagon placed therein by hand. Horses and oxen were taken over separately, or caused to swim the river by the side of a canoe, guided by a line. My father soon provided a safe conveyance, by building a scow suffi- ciently large to transport teams of all kinds. The tavern was kept by widow Sydney in a small log cabin with leantoes attached, which served for lodging rooms and stow-aways, and a plank addition serving as parlor and dining room. Her husband had died a short time previous."
Whatever difference of opinion may exist respecting the claims of the respective parties to priority of settlement, it will not be disputed that the first settlement of any considerable extent was commenced at what was long known as Cross Roads, in the present town of Westfield, by persons from the" state of Pennsylvania. Among the first of these immi- grants were John and James McMahan. After an examination of the lands along the lake, they made contracts for large tracts in 1801. John's purchase embraced the whole of township 4, in range 14, containing 22,014 acres, which, at $2.50 per acre, amounted to $55,035. He paid down $1,035 ; the remainder to be paid in eight annual installments with annual interest. James contracted for a tract in township 3, range 15. This tract extended from the lake shore about 2 miles south, and from the east line of the township [now Ripley], about t,}^ miles westward to within about half a mile of the village of Quincy, containing 4,074 acres ; the terms of payment similar to those expressed in the contract made with his brother John. These contracts, though considered as made in 1801, were not perfected, or fully executed, until May and July, 1803, after portions of the land had been sold by the first contractors. The early settlers on these lands bought of the McMahans, the Land Company giving title deeds on the payment to them of the purchase money, which was credited on the McMahans' contract with the company.
Although James' purchase was in Ripley, he selected and bought for him- self, within his brother's tract, a lot on which he settled, about three-fourths of a mile west of Chautauqua creek, and which extended east to the old " Cross Roads."
74 HISTORY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY.
The next spring, [1802,] Mr. McMahan commenced clearing his farm, and is said to have cleared about ten acres, which he planted and sowed the rirst season. This was the first field cleared in the county. Although Mr. McMahan had previously built a log house, and was properly the first settler, he did not move his family into it, it is said, until late in 1802. Tl^ first family was that of Edward McHenry, at the " Cross Roads," so called from its being the place where the Buffalo & Erie road crossed the old " Portage Road." At the solicitation of McMahan, as is said, McHenry came with him, not only to settle, but to keep a house of entertainment for emigrants westward, " New Connecticut," in Ohio, being then rapidly settling from the East. A few months after McHenry's arrival, his son John was born, the first child in the county born of white parents. The death of the father the next year, who was drowned in the lake by the capsizing of a small boat, while on his way to Erie to obtain a supply of provisions, was the first death of a white settler in the county. His two companions were saved by cling- ing to the boat. His body, it is said, was never recovered.
In the discussion of the conflicting claims of different places in the county to priority of settlement, it is somewhat strange that Col. McMahan should have been so long spoken of as the earliest settler here. On his tour of inspection in 1801, with a view to a location, he was accompanied by one Andrew Straub, a Pennsylvania German, who selected for himself a place a short distance east of where the village of Westfield now is, and built on it a house and occupied it the same year. He made clearings and resided there many years. The stream on or near which he settled, derived its name from him, and was long known as " Straub's Creek." Stones from his fireplace, and other relics of his house, have been found at a compara- tively recent date ; and there are persons now living who have personal knowledge of his residence here. He had no family. After the lands were surveyed, he contracted for 450 acres.
After the settlement of Col. McMahan and Mr. McHenry, settlers came in rapidly. Most of them settled on the road early opened towards Erie : David Kincaid, who bought in November, 1802, north of McMahan's ; in 1803, Arthur Bell, in January; Christopher Dull, in June; James Mont- gomery, in July ; and Andrew Straub, in September ; all of whom are believed to have settled on their lands the year of their purchase, except Straub, who is known to have settled on his a year or two earlier, and before
the land was surveyed into lots ; and Culbertson, George and John
Degeer — all of whom, it is said, came from Pennsylvania. Also Jeremiah George, who bought in 1803; Jacob George and Laughlin McNeil, in 1804; and George Whitehill, in 1805, are believed to have settled at or near the times of their purchases. In 1806 and 1807, came David Eason, Matthew McClintock and Low Miniger from Canadaway, [Fredonia,] who also were from Pennsylvania, and who had resided one or two years at Fredonia. Miniger settled on a farm about a mile east from the village of Westfield, in t8o6. McClintock also, before Eason, came to Westfield, having sold his
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EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY. 75